The voters in Australia cast their vote in a general election on Saturday, the third important ally of the United States after Germany and Canada to vote in a global economic and political landscape overturned by the second Trump administration.
The two men who compete to lead Australia-Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, of the Labor-left Labor Party, and opposition leader Peter Dutton, of the conservative Coalition Acre that the country finds Islf in the most challenging environment in a generation. It depends sharply on the United States for its safety, but derives much of its prosperity of trade with China, which is exercising its military ambitions increasingly close to the coast of Australia.
However, most voters are a persistent crisis of the cost of living and the accessibility of housing that has worsened that has further cushioned the hero’s optimism that Australia is a country proof of blessed recession with resources.
“Everything costs a lot,” said Judy Pula, a registered nurse and mother of two children who voted in the Liverpool suburb in Sydney making a break in her turn. Mrs. Pula, 29, said she had voted for the Labor in the past, but this time she opted for the Australian green. “I feel that a new leader would be beneficial for us.”
Even so, the most recent opinion polls showed that Mr. Albanese’s party went to a second mandate with most seats in the House of Representatives, a change of the beginning of the year, when the opposition was in the lead. Australia has a Westminister -style parliamentary system.
This is what you should know about the elections:
Is the economy, friend
Mr. Dutton has gone to no less than 15 service stations, the Guardian told, in the campaign campaign, playing his party’s proposal to reduce a tax to reduce payments in the pump. Mr. Albanian has shown his card for Medicare again and again, the Universal Medical Care System of Australia, highlighting the promise to reduce pocket costs.
As much as the global agitation that originates in Washington has dominated the news cycles here in recent months, voters say their main concerns are bread and butter problems (or bread, butter and vegemita here). But both main parties have promised only small -scale measures to relieve economic pressures, instead of bold and ambitious ideas for the country’s management.
Bilal Anwar, a naturalized citizen who voted in his first Australian choice, said that the increase in prices in recent years had been amazing.
“Only a bread bar that I bought, used to cost a dollar and a half or two, now there are four, five dollars,” said Mr. Anwar, 39, referring to prices in Australian dollars. “This is not how many salaries have risen.”
Duration of a round of rays in their debate, the two candidates were asked the price of egg boxes, which are sold for more than 8 Australian dollars, or almost $ 6. Mr. Dutton was far away, putting the price at half of that. Mr. Albanian was closer but still low, with his response or 7 Australian dollars.
The price of eggs has increased by 13.5 percent in the year prior to March 2025, after increasing 6.8 percent the previous year. Another Stapha, Vegemite, has also become more extent, thought at a slower pace.
“It’s the hip pocket nerve. Under what government would you be better?” Shaun Ratcliff said, political scrub and pollster of Accent Research. He even thought that economic dissatisfaction has dragged the approval ratings of Mr. Albanese and should have helped the conservative opposition, “I do not think they have convinced voters who would do much better,” he said.
Culture War
A low political point for Mr. Albanese in his three -year term was the failure of a 2023 referendum to consecrate the representation rights for the aboriginal Australians in Parliament. He had a great campaign promise when he was chosen the previous year. His Labor Party won control in 2022 after the center -right coalition had been in power for nine years.
Dutton, a former Queensland state police officer, opposed the measure and continued to take a position against other symbolic recognitions of indigenous peoples. He said he would not stop in front of the aboriginal and island flags of the Torres Strait and said that giving recognition of the first Australians in public events is “exaggerated.”
John Goodwin, a 72 -year -old retiree with sandals and a shirt that said “Old Guys Rule,” he said he did not believe that Mr. Dutton had made a good campaign, but still voted for his party because he did not want to have control.
Those criticized both main parties: “I think policies are just rhetoric, surviving.” Hi, he added: “I can’t wait for it.”
At the beginning of the campaign, the opposition leader had adopted some fashion words or policies that echoed President Trump and some of the causes of his pets, including the complaint of “Wokess” and diversity initiatives. That strategy seemed aimed at assembling the worldwide and anti-consumbent currents that dominated last year. But as the first months of Trump’s presidency have developed, the association began to be seen against Mr. Dutton.
“At this time, being seen how Trumpian is, for the medium voter, not something good,” said Ben Rueue, an independent electoral analyst who runs the Tally room of the political monitoring site.
Grahame Don, 56, voted for the Liberal Party for decades, but began to support the Labor in recent elections. Trump’s tone to talk about problems was bleeding towards Australian politics, he said.
“This country has only won things like migration and international students who have tried to make divisive,” he said.
Change of the main parties
Australia, one of the few places in the world with mandatory vote, fines for people who do not appear at the polls. That means that politicians do not have the option of attending narrow and extreme bases to be the vote, which makes their policy much more centava.
But in recent elections, Australian voters have moved away from the two main parties that have long been dominant for a long time, instead of resorting to independent candidates and minor parties. This trend also makes the perspective of a minority government more likely, which would force the force party to win the greatest amount of seats to negotiate with narrower parties.
Garth Lotz, 35, resident of Queensland, the state of origin of Mr. Dutton, said he voted for an independent candidate, hoping that he will lead to less party policies.
“Maybe there will be less of the environment of the sports team that sometimes broadcasts,” he said.
Chris Wallace, a political historian of the University of Canberra, said that the change was a clear sign of the Australian public of dissatisfaction with the list of proposals and candidates sacrificed by the two main actors.
“The main parties do not listen to the opinions of the voters desperate for deeper solutions to today’s deep problems, younger voters,” he said.
