By MAX AITCHISON, POLITICAL REPORTER FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

Published: 23:56 BST, 20 April 2025 | Updated: 00:19 BST, 21 April 2025

Australians will head to the polls a week on Saturday.

A major poll has found that Labor’s primary vote has rise to 34 per cent – its highest point in more than a year.

While voters view Peter Dutton as the stronger leader when it comes to defending Australia or growing the country’s economy, the Opposition Leader will need an Easter miracle to oust Anthony Albanese from the Lodge. 

Follow Daily Mail Australia’s live coverage of day 24 of the federal election campaign below. 

Russia’s ominous four-word warning

Valdimir Putin’s man in Jakarta has fired a warning to Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton over their opposition to a proposed Russian military base in Indonesia.

The prospect of Russian aircraft operating out of Indonesia’s Biak Island, just 1300km from Darwin, sent shockwaves through the federal election campaign last week.

Mr Albanese accused the Opposition Leader of ‘verballing’ the Indonesian President after Mr Dutton claimed that Indonesian President had confirmed reports that Russia wanted to fly aircraft out of the country.

Mr Dutton was later forced to apologise for the comments but warned that Russia’s ‘closeness’ with Indonesia was ‘concerning’.

But now Moscow’s ambassador in Jakarta, Sergei Tolchenov, has accused both leaders of trying to out-do one another by dialling up the anti-Russian rhetoric ahead of the election.

‘It is clear that the leaders of the two main political parties, replacing each other in power and calling it democracy, are now trying to outdo each other, heating up the situation,’ he wrote in a letter to the Jakarta Post.

‘They stop at nothing, and the time has come to play the so-called “Russian card”.

‘This means to show to overseas mentors who is more anti-Russian and Russophobe.’

But then the Russian diplomat, quoting directly from Trump’s now-infamous altercation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House, issued an ominous warning: ‘You have no cards’.

He is warning that whoever wins on May 3, they should not stand in Russia’s way.

Read more about Moscow’s play for a military base in Indonesia below:

:
LIVE: Election 2025 – Russia sends brutal four-word warning to Albo and Dutton as tensions build over military base on Australia’s doorstep



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