Voters still deciding on their election pick have been presented with another Labor health pitch, while the opposition rails against the financial squeeze on households.

With the finishing line in sight ahead of the May 3 vote, Labor has returned to bolstering medical services with a promise to build on the existing Healthdirect hotline.

More than $200 million would be spent on 1800MEDICARE, a 24/7 nationwide health advice and after-hours GP telehealth service, the latest in a string of health commitments from the government.

Health Minister Mark Butler said the service was not intended as a substitute for existing doctor-patient relationships, a concern raised by the Australian Medical Association.

“This is not intended as a substitute for your relationship with your usual GP but intended to cover circumstances where people need to be seen immediately,” Mr Butler told ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday.

“For example, when your kid gets sick.”

The health minister batted away questions about his party’s disparaging framing of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s track record on public health care.

“There’s a risk in giving Medicare back to a man that doctors voted the worst health minister in the history of the system,” he said.

Mr Dutton accused Labor of “throwing mud” to distract from a lack of progress during three years in office.

“Labor’s run this negative campaign, but Australians are happy to see through that,” Mr Dutton told Seven’s Weekend Sunrise program.

“Australians know that in their own households, they’ve gone backwards.”

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie stressed her party’s commitment to the regions, including a promise not to cut working holiday visa-holder numbers.

“We need those backpackers out in our regions, for tourism, hospitality and agriculture tasks,” she told ABC Insiders on Sunday.

The opposition has promised to cut permanent migration by 25 per cent.

Mr Dutton will go head-to-head with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the fourth and final leaders’ debate on Sunday evening, to be held by Seven.

Polling throughout the five-week race has consistently shown Mr Albanese cement his lead as preferred prime minister over Mr Dutton as the coalition has similarly fallen behind in voter surveys.

The latest polling from YouGov, released on Friday, showed Labor ahead of the coalition by 53.5 per cent to 46.5 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.

The coalition needs to gain 21 seats to secure a majority, a figure leaders insist is still achievable.

The two leaders have already previously clashed three times, with two of the debates held in western Sydney, where political analysts believe the election could be decided.

Mr Dutton’s campaign pace in the last week has gained speed, as he visited up to three states a day.

In the Victorian battleground, Mr Dutton will attempt to wrest Goldstein, Kooyong, Aston, Dunkley, Gorton and Hawke from Labor.

In NSW, the opposition leader will target Mackellar, Paterson, Dobell, Bennelong and Gilmore.

In WA, South Australia, Tasmania and Queensland, the coalition will go for Bullwinkel, Boothby, Lyons and Moreton among others.

Mortgage-holders are set for further relief, with economists declaring you can “lock in” an upcoming interest rate cut.

Quarterly numbers released on Wednesday are expected to show core inflation has dropped within the Reserve Bank of Australia’s target range, paving the way for a rate cut at its May 20 meeting.

Economists from Australia’s big four banks have all forecasted the Reserve Bank’s preferred measure of annual trimmed mean inflation will come in at either 2.8 or 2.9 per cent – within its target range of two to three per cent.

The annual rate leapt out of the target range in early 2022, triggering 12 rate rises in 13 months.

The central bank cut its cash rate to 4.10 per cent in February and Westpac Group chief economist Luci Ellis said another cut in May was guaranteed.

“You can lock in a (0.25 per cent) cut in May, even if the Q1 inflation data is a shade disappointing,” she said.

“For the time being, we continue to expect a total of three further cuts (0.75 per cent in total), including the cut in May, with August and November pencilled in for the other two cuts.”

Each 25 basis point cut would shave about $90 off monthly repayments on a typical $600,000 mortgage.

While some wondered if the global economic uncertainty caused by US President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs might trigger a larger than usual cut – as high as 0.5 per cent – Dr Ellis said that was not plausible.

She labelled commentary suggesting the double-cut “breathless” and said Australia was less affected by the tariffs than other economies.

“If the board were to do something other than cut by 0.25 per cent in May, it might consider a 0.35 per cent move to 3.75 per cent,” she said.

“To be clear, we regard this as a very outside chance.”

NAB, however, disagreed and has prepared for a 0.5 per cent rate cut, also predicting annual trimmed mean inflation would be recorded at 2.8 per cent.

“We think quarterly CPI will largely take a back seat to rising global uncertainty,” its weekly markets report read.

“Our base case is that the RBA will deliver a 50bp cut in May to take policy more quickly towards neutral.”

Retail sales figures are due out on Friday, while US policy developments will continue to be of interest as Trump celebrates his first 100 days in office at a rally in Michigan on Tuesday.

Investors on Wall Street have meanwhile parsed a spate of earnings looking for signs of easing tensions in the US-China trade dispute.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indices were bolstered by gains in the “magnificent seven” group of artificial intelligence-related megacaps on Friday, while the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was more muted.

The latter rose 20.10 points, or 0.05 per cent, to 40,113.50,  the S&P gained 40.44 points, or 0.74 per cent, to 5,525.21 and the Nasdaq gained 216.90 points, or 1.26 per cent, to 17,382.94.

In a shortened trade week, Australian share futures lifted only 2.0 points, or 0.02 per cent, to 7,786.

The S&P/ASX200 rose 47.7 points, or 0.60 per cent on Thursday, before the Anzac Day public holiday, to 7,968.2, as the broader All Ordinaries gained 49.9 points, or 0.61 per cent, to 8,175.1.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his family appeared in Rome for Pope Francis’ funeral.

A photo of Assange and his family was shared on X along with a message from his wife Stella.

The message said the family had come to Rome to “express our family’s gratitude for the Pope’s support during Julian’s persecution”.

Legal action against Assange started in 2010 after hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were published.

Assange’s freedom in June last year followed a court appearance before a judge in the US territory of the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific, where he pleaded guilty to a single charge after the United States dropped 17 other espionage charges against him.

About 200,000 people gathered for Pope Francis’ funeral on Saturday morning, including world leaders.

“Now Julian is free, we have all come to Rome to express our family’s gratitude for the Pope’s support during Julian’s persecution,” WikiLeaks posted on X.

“Our children and I had the honour of meeting Pope Francis in June 2023 to discuss how to free Julian from Belmarsh prison.

“Francis wrote to Julian in prison and even proposed to grant him asylum at the Vatican.’ – Stella Assange.”

As Peter Dutton talked tough on crime, Anthony Albanese stressed the importance of diversity and the two came no closer than the opposite ends of the nation.

With seven days until Australians who are yet to vote head to the polls, the opposition leader took his message to Queensland’s far north and Top End capital of Darwin on Saturday, while the prime minister started out in Melbourne before heading south to Launceston.

Listening to the concerns of Northern Territory voters on the issue of crime, Mr Dutton promised without offering detail to get tough on the issue.

 “You need financial support and moral support … to provide a secure environment for people to lead their lives,” he told them.

“The current government is too focused on what’s happening in the inner cities of Sydney and Melbourne with the Greens.”

Earlier in Cairns, he announced 25 medical places at James Cook University to boost local GP numbers and pledged $34 million for infrastructure upgrades to a local housing estate.

Beyond the ‘small-ticket’ initiatives, he assured his audience his party could form majority government.

“I’ve said that from day one,” he told them.

“Something like one in three Australians who are undecided or soft voters at the moment, that is a historically high number in federal elections and it shows people are weighing up their options.”

At New Century Chinese Language School in Melbourne’s east, Mr Albanese revealed $25 million for Australia’s 600 community schools that help more than 90,000 students learn 84 languages.

“Multiculturalism is a strength of our national economy but also a strength of our society,” he said.

“Australia is a microcosm for the world … where overwhelmingly we live side by side with different backgrounds, different faiths, different origins, different cultures.”

This also presented “an enormous opportunity”, he said, for jobs and for cultural enrichment.

By the time he landed in northern Tasmania, policy talk gave way to urging supporters to next weekend’s finish line between bites of barbecued sausage.

The day of movement and colour but little substance came on the heels of fresh polling indicating more than half of voters have switched off.

While Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton have spent a month criss-crossing the country splashing cash, 62 per cent of Australians can’t think of a policy they believe would improve their lot, research commissioned by AAP and modelled by YouGov shows.

Of the 38 per cent of survey recipients who could name a life-improving policy, most nominated Medicare and bulk-billing followed by energy relief and general cost-of-living measures.

Labor-led promises were getting more traction than the coalition’s offerings, according to YouGov director of public data Paul Smith. 

Voters prioritised policies based on their age, with younger Australians more frequently pointing to housing action as a life improvement, while older people chose energy price relief or health-related promises.

But even the most popular commitment was only named by five per cent of those polled.

Australians tended to feel more connected to policies when they felt more real, Mr Smith said, referencing the coalition’s announcement to end work-from-home arrangements.

The party later walked back the policy but the damage had been done, taking it from a winning position to a place where it was struggling, Mr Smith said.

Attitudes in marginal seats across the country could also spell a continued downfall for the opposition.

Boothby in Adelaide, Braddon in Tasmania, the NSW central west seat of Calare and electorates such as Hunter, Gilmore, Lyons, Paterson and Wannon were all within arm’s reach for the opposition two months ago.

But they have all slipped through the coalition’s fingers and will go to Labor or independents, according to the polling.

“Working class, provincial and outer-suburban Australians have moved decisively away from the coalition,” Mr Smith said.

The YouGov poll of 2483 people was conducted last week, with a 3.1 per cent margin of error.

China exempted some US imports from its steep tariffs in a sign that the trade war between the world’s top two economies could be easing, though Beijing quickly knocked down US President Donald Trump’s assertion that negotiations were under way.

Business groups on Friday said China has allowed some US-made pharmaceuticals to enter the country without paying the 125 per cent duties that Beijing imposed earlier this month in response to Trump’s 145 per cent tariffs on US imports.

Also, a list of 131 product categories said to be under consideration for exemptions was circulating among some businesses and trade groups. 

Reuters could not verify the list, which includes vaccines, chemicals and jet engines, and China has not yet communicated publicly on the issue. 

Trump’s administration has in recent days signaled it is looking to de-escalate the confrontation with China, and Trump himself told TIME magazine that talks were taking place and that Chinese President Xi Jinping had called him.

“I don’t think it’s a sign of weakness on his behalf,” he said.

China denied that discussions were happening.

“China and the US are NOT having any consultation or negotiation on #tariffs. The US should stop creating confusion,” the Chinese Embassy in Washington wrote on social media. In addition to the steep tariffs on China, Trump has announced targeted tariffs on dozens of other countries, which he has suspended until July 9.

That has set off a scramble among US trading partners to strike individual trade deals with Washington before the deadline – a tall order, given that past trade deals have typically taken years to negotiate. 

Trump told reporters at the White House that he was very close to a deal with Japan. That is seen by analysts as a “test case” for other bilateral trade agreements, though talks could be difficult. 

Some expect Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Trump to announce a pact when they meet at the G7 summit in Canada in June.

Trump separately told TIME that he had made “200 deals” that would be completed within three to four weeks, though he declined to provide specifics. 

He said he would consider it a “total victory” if tariffs were still 20 per cent to 50 per cent a year from now. Trump has argued that his thicket of trade barriers will revive US manufacturing industries that have been hollowed out by global competition.

Economists, however, broadly warn that they would lead to higher prices for US consumers and increase the risk of recession.

US stocks are down roughly 10 per cent since Trump returned to office in January, lagging indexes in other countries, while the dollar has fallen at an unprecedented rate.

European and Asian stocks headed for a second straight week of gains on Friday and the dollar eyed its first weekly rise in more than a month, as investors took comfort from signs the US and China were prepared to pull back from their trade war. Wall Street’s main indexes rose slightly as investors struggled for clarity on the US-China trade front.

In addition to the country-specific tariffs, Trump has also imposed a blanket 10 per cent tariff on all other US imports and higher duties on steel, aluminium and autos. He has also floated additional industry-specific levies on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. That could cause drug prices in the US to rise by up to 12.9 per cent, according to an industry estimate.

Trump’s tariffs dominated discussions at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings this week, where finance ministers angled for one-on-one meetings with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Bessent characterised initial talks with South Korea as “very successful” on Thursday, which Seoul called a “good start.” Further discussions are scheduled for next week.

Switzerland also said it was satisfied with its initial meeting with Bessent. The US trade office said it is “constantly engaged” with Japan and other countries, but said Trump would ultimately decide whether they would proceed.

There was little sign of tangible progress with other countries, despite the urging of IMF head Kristalina Georgieva, who warned earlier this week they could cause a severe slowdown in global growth. 

China’s foreign ministry is urging Washington to stop “misleading the public” on bilateral tariff negotiations, saying it’s not familiar with reports on whether Beijing is planning to exempt tariffs on some US imports.

“The United States and China are not engaged in consultations or talks on the tariff issue,” Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for the ministry, said at a media briefing on Friday.

US President Donald Trump asserted on Thursday that trade talks between the two countries were under way after both China’s foreign ministry and commerce ministry denied such negotiations.

“They had a meeting this morning,” Trump told reporters, declining to say to whom he was referring.

“It doesn’t matter who ‘they’ is. We may reveal it later, but they had meetings this morning, and we’ve been meeting with China.”

A White House official said lower level in-person talks as well as a phone call between US and Chinese staff had taken place this week.

Guo said he was not familiar with the specifics of whether China was planning tariff exemptions on some US imports.

The back-and-forth remarks by Beijing and Washington add further confusion as to when and whether the world’s two largest economies would start talks on high levies on each others’ goods.

Multiple rounds of tariff hikes and retaliative measures have raised US tariffs on Chinese goods to 145 per cent and China’s on US imports to 125 per cent, upending the operations of many businesses on both sides.

The Trump administration had said it would look at lowering tariffs on some imported Chinese goods, pending talks with Beijing, Reuters reported, whereas China said the US should cancel all “unilateral” tariffs if it wanted to solve the trade issue.

On Friday, China’s top policymakers convened a meeting where they highlighted the need to support businesses and workers amid rising “external shocks”.

Tit-for-tat tariffs that began with US President Donald Trump’s announcement of hefty import levies on April 2 had threatened to stall trade between the world’s two biggest economies and sparked fears of a slowdown in global growth.

This week, the US shifted its tone and said the situation was unsustainable, and China is considering exempting some US imports from its 125 per cent tariffs in the biggest sign yet of Beijing’s concerns about the economic fallout.

The moves were the latest signs that the world’s two largest economies were prepared to rein in their trade war.

World stocks are headed for a second straight week of gains and the dollar for its first weekly rise in more than a month as investors take comfort from signs the US and China are prepared to pull back from their trade war.

Europe’s benchmark STOXX index rose 0.3 per cent on Friday on hopes of an easing of trade tensions, buoyed also by a range of positive corporate earnings reports from Finnish forestry group Stora Enso to French jet engine maker Safran.

US futures, likewise, climbed after tech giant and Google parent Alphabet also beat profit expectations and reaffirmed AI spending targets, pushing its shares up nearly five per cent in after-hours trade and pulling along peers.

The dollar, which has taken a beating through a volatile few weeks of tariff announcements, reversals and a flight out of US assets, found a footing around $US1.1330 per euro and 143.4 Japanese yen.

“The peak in terms of threatened tariff rates is likely behind us,” said Eli Lee, chief investment strategist at Bank of Singapore.

“In terms of the US-China stand-off, both sides have indicated they would not raise rates beyond current levels.”

Tit-for-tat tariffs that began with US President Donald Trump’s announcement of hefty import levies on April 2 had threatened to stall trade between the world’s two biggest economies and sparked fears of a slowdown in global growth.

This week, the US shifted its tone and said the situation was unsustainable, and China is considering exempting some US imports from its 125 per cent tariffs in the biggest sign yet of Beijing’s concerns about the economic fallout.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng rose one per cent and there were small rises for mainland China’s Shanghai Composite and blue chip CSI300.

In Japan, the Nikkei was up 1.8 per cent on Friday and has regained all its losses since Trump’s announcement of the highest US tariffs in 100 years – levies he largely suspended, except for China and a baseline tariff of 10 per cent.

“There is probably a feeling from market participants that they have regained some ‘control’ on the US government, and can somehow force a more friendly stance on key topics,” said ING currency strategist Francesco Pesole in a note to clients.

“Investors will be seeking confirmation of the more optimistic stance on US assets to justify further dollar gains.”

The US dollar index was up 0.2 per cent for the week at 99.623.

Despite the positive mood, there were also plenty of warning signs that markets’ surface calm may not last long.

Overnight Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Chipotle Mexican Grill and American Airlines all cut or withdrew forecasts due to elevated uncertainty among consumers.

Gold was firm at $US3,296 an ounce and analysts at Phillip Securities in Singapore noted the Gold/S&P 500 ratio, a gauge of investors’ gloom, was at its highest since the pandemic-driven bear market of 2020.

Pressure eased on the US Treasury market which was sold off heavily as Trump’s tariff barrage rattled confidence in US leadership and assets, with 10-year yields steady at 4.30 per cent on Friday. 

Japanese yields rose along the curve after a hotter-than-expected Tokyo inflation reading.

A “messy” campaign has left the coalition failing to resonate with voters, analysts say, amid a fresh plunge in the polls.

The coalition’s primary vote has dropped to 31 per cent, down from 33 per cent last week, the latest YouGov poll provided to AAP shows.

Labor’s primary vote is up 0.5 per cent to 33.5 per cent.

The lowest-ever primary vote the coalition has received in YouGov polling is driven by the opposition leader’s unpopularity, director of public data Paul Smith says. 

“The public have clearly made a decision that they don’t want Peter Dutton as prime minister,” he told AAP.

The YouGov polling shows Labor leading the coalition by 53.5 per cent to 46.5 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.

The poll results indicated the largest turnaround and rejection of an opposition since 1993, when then-coalition leader John Hewson led prime minister Paul Keating in the polls for two years until “it all changed in the campaign”, Mr Smith said. 

ANU historian Frank Bongiorno said the coalition’s campaign had been consistently poor with its electoral strategy marred by backflips and missteps.

“I don’t recall a campaign quite as messy,” Professor Bongiorno told AAP.

“Simply waiting around for a government to fall over is a pretty dangerous sort of strategy.

“(Mr) Dutton and the coalition seem to believe that you go out and pursue seats in the outer suburbs and the regions through particular issues, such as the cost of living and perhaps also culture wars.”

Mr Dutton’s focus on soft populism rather than hard policies could be shaped by his “instinctive” conservative Queensland political background and was not resonating with a wide swathe of voters, Prof Bongiorno said.

“They (the coalition) have failed to really chase the votes they need in other areas, including large parts of the major cities that have gone over either to Labor, the Greens or teals.”

Labor’s support is higher than its 2022 federal election result of 52.1 per cent, while the coalition’s is 4.7 per cent lower than it achieved at that election.

Anthony Albanese (50 per cent) has also extended his lead over Mr Dutton (35 per cent) as preferred prime minister.

Mr Dutton’s net satisfaction rating dipped to minus 18 from minus 10 last week, while Mr Albanese’s was down slightly to minus seven from minus six. 

“Anthony Albanese is for the first time the preferred prime minister amongst all states, amongst women and men and in regional and rural Australia, as well as the capital cities,” Mr Smith said.

A separate poll reinforces the challenge facing Mr Dutton to become prime minister, after he was viewed as the most distrusted politician in the country.

The opposition leader was considered to be 220 per cent more distrustful than Mr Albanese, the Roy Morgan survey shows.

YouGov polling also shows One Nation could benefit from the slide away from the coalition, with the party up 3.5 per cent to 10.5 per cent.

“It positions them well to probably have their best result in decades,” Mr Smith said.

The coalition had a strategy of winning in working-class seats but its now-dumped policy of banning public servants from working from home “completely alienated a large group of voters”, he said.

The YouGov poll of 1500 voters was conducted between April 17 and Tuesday, with a margin of error of 3.3 per cent.

China has warned a G20 meeting that world economic growth is “insufficient” as tariff and trade wars exacerbate economic and financial instability and sap growth momentum.

Speaking at the group’s meeting in Washington DC, Finance Minister Lan Fo’an called on all parties to strengthen multilateral co-operation, saying that China supported dialogue and consultation “on equal footing” to settle trade and tariff disputes.

Other participants at the finance ministers and central bank governors meeting also flagged the significant increase in risks to global growth from trade tensions, tighter financing conditions and long-term structural challenges, according to the PBOC statement.

They also called for strengthening dialogue and policy coordination, the statement said without referring to the United States.

Meanwhile, People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng said economic fragmentation and trade tensions had disrupted supply chains, weakening the momentum of global economic growth, the central bank said in a separate readout on Friday.

Pan also told the meeting, which took place on Wednesday and Thursday, that the world’s major economies should strengthen their participation in international macroeconomic and financial policy coordination.

The Group of 20 major economies were meeting in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s announcement of hefty tariffs on imports that have triggered turmoil in financial markets and prompted the International Monetary Fund to cut its growth forecasts for most countries around the world.

While Trump later put some of the tariffs on hold, he raised China levies to 145 per cent, and maintained a universal import tariff of 10 per cent as well as 25 per cent duties on cars, steel and aluminium.

The US indicated talks were taking place with China on tariffs but Beijing on Thursday denied that, demanding the US drop the levies.

Lan also urged for better implementation of the debt treatment mechanism under the G20’s Common Framework, and said all parties should pool more resources for Africa’s development and strengthen Africa’s capacity-building.

The finance ministry said Lan held bilateral meetings and exchanges with representatives from countries and organisations including South Africa, the European Commission, Pakistan, Germany, South Korea, Indonesia, Britain, Japan and the World Bank.

The meetings were mainly to discuss the macroeconomic situation, key issues of the G20 fiscal channels and bilateral cooperation, the readout said.

From major cities to regional towns and suburban centres in between, Australians have gathered to commemorate the nation’s veterans on Anzac Day.

On the 110th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings, tens of thousands attended dawn services and marches before the more-solemn activities gave way to traditional games of two-up at the pub.

While the majority of the morning’s events were sombre and respectful, a handful were disrupted with interjections, booing and heckling.

At Melbourne’s dawn service, a self-professed neo-Nazi was arrested after booing and calling out during a Welcome to Country from an Indigenous elder, actions that were widely condemned.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who attended the dawn service at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, said there was no place for those who disrupted the service.

“A neo-Nazi disrupting Anzac Day is abhorrent, un-Australian and disgraceful,” he said.

Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh described the behaviour as disgraceful.

A heckler also disrupted a Welcome to Country in Perth during commemorations, while an attendee at the Canberra event shouted “free Palestine” before the national anthems were played.

Elsewhere, bouts of heavy rain in Sydney and Brisbane were no deterrent as large crowds gathered for early services and subsequent parades.

Anzac Day, held annually on April 25, recognises the more than 1.5 million Australians who have served in wars and peace operations, including 103,000 who lost their lives.

Among the crowd at the Sydney dawn service was Gwen Cherne and her children, who lost their husband and father Peter to suicide in 2017 after a long and distinguished military career.

She now serves as Veteran Family Advocate Commissioner, saying she personally understood the sacrifices of veterans and their families who “make sure our society doesn’t crack”.

At Elephant Rock on the Gold Coast, a solemn acknowledgement of sacrifice was held with the ashes of veterans who had recently died given a ceremonial burial at sea during one of Australia’s most poignant dawn services.

Mr Albanese, who like his political opponents suspended election campaigning on Friday for the commemorations, said Anzac Day was a day to contemplate the debt today’s citizens owed to those who served.

“Each year, we renew our vow to keep the flame of memory burning so brightly that its glow touches the next generation and the generation after that,” he said.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton laid a wreath at a dawn service in his electorate of Dickson in Brisbane’s northern suburbs, alongside his wife Kirilly.

He said commemorations in 2025 were particularly significant, coming on the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.

“Barely a city or town, a suburb or street, a community or citizen was unscathed in some way by the catastrophe of that all-encompassing conflict,” Mr Dutton said.

Dawn services and marches across the nation honoured the enduring contributions of service personnel at Gallipoli and the 110 years since, RSL Australia national president Greg Melick said.

“The Gallipoli campaign was the first major military action involving Australian and New Zealand forces,” he said.

“They held their ground against almost impossible odds for eight months in the ravines and gullies of that rugged battleground, suffering terrible casualties.

“They fought with endurance, courage, ingenuity, good humour, and mateship.”

Governor-General Sam Mostyn, whose father served in the army for four decades, is the most senior Australian representative at a dawn service at Gallipoli Cove.

Services are also being held across many European battlefronts from World War I where Australians fought, including Villers-Bretonneux.

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