Leaders are desperately trying to woo Australians with political offerings a day before early voting opens, with millions of people set to cast their ballots early.

The Australian Electoral Commission is preparing to deliver what it calls Australia’s largest peacetime logistical event with more than 18 million people registered to vote and 60 million ballot papers being printed.

The Easter long weekend traditionally represents a campaign lull, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese using Sunday to chat rugby league.

However his Good Friday was anything but as his beloved Rabbitohs were demolished by the Bulldogs 32-0.

“A sore point, a bit rough for Easter to see the Bunnies go down like that,” he told Nine’s Sunday Footy Show.

Over the long weekend, Labor promised to legislate penalty rate protections in a move branded a stunt by the coalition.

The opposition maintains the Fair Work Commission, which sets the minimum wages and conditions, should remain independent.

“You’ve got the Labor Party coming out saying … somehow the coalition’s got penalty rates in their sights, that is not correct,” Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie said.

But the opposition is under pressure to reveal its full policy costings while major announcements, such as defence spending, remain up its sleeve as Australians begin voting.

The latest Newspoll, published in the Australian, shows a lift in Labor’s primary vote to 34 per cent, its highest mark in a year, with the coalition on 35 per cent.

On a two-party preferred basis, Labor is at 52 per cent, ahead of the coalition’s 48 per cent, raising the possibility of a hung parliament, given support for the Greens and independents.

Approval ratings have fallen for both men, though Albanese is well ahead as preferred prime minister – 52 per cent to Dutton’s 36 per cent.

Support for each leader varies according to issue, with Dutton favoured on defence and the economy, but Albanese preferred on the electorate’s dominant concern, the cost of living, along with housing and health.

The survey’s 1263 respondents also judged the Labor leader to be better able to handle the fall-out of the Trump presidency in the US.

Meanwhile, a Resolve Strategic poll published in Nine newspapers has shown voters are not entirely convinced by Labor’s cost of living promises with 47 per cent saying it is a stumbling block to voting the PM back into power.

But that has not translated into an automatic boost for Peter Dutton with 45 per cent of those polled citing his personality as the top reason they would not elect him to the top political job.

That represents a resounding 10 per cent rise from two months earlier in response to the same question, when 35 per cent were critical of his temperament.

Dutton’s crime crackdown

Parents would be able to check whether they’re living near a child sex offender under an election promise by Peter Dutton to stamp out crime from the “border to the backyard”.

Should the coalition win the May 3 election, it will spend more than $750 million to improve community safety by tightening laws and the nation’s borders, in addition to extra resources for policing and intelligence agencies.

Under Operation Safer Communities, $355 million in extra funding would go to national law enforcement authorities to crackdown on illegal drugs.

A pilot national sex offenders disclosure scheme would be set up to give parents more information about criminals in their communities.

The coalition plan would see new laws introduced to disrupt organised criminal syndicates, including strengthening proceeds of crime and unexplained wealth laws.

Drug laws would be streamlined across the country to close gaps and improve cross-border police cooperation.

Dutton claimed safety had been compromised by Labor’s “weak leadership and bad decisions”.

“I have the experience and determination to stand up to the outlaw motorcycle gangs and organised crime syndicates which are wreaking havoc on our streets and in our communities,” he said.

“I will strengthen laws and provide more funding for our police and intelligence agencies to stop the crime gangs, protect our borders, and protect our community.”

A new dedicated taskforce led by the Australian Federal Police, would be set up to tackle anti-Semitism in the community.

Australia’s screening and detection capabilities would be upgraded to help catch more drugs at the border and stop their entry into communities.

Authorities would also target the importation and distribution of date rape drugs used to spike drinks.

Crime Stoppers would also be given $7.5 million over three years to expand its operations and help protect more people from offending in local communities.

The Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation would have its funding doubled.

The coalition has also promised to make it illegal to post content glamourising criminal activity online and ban offenders from using social media for two years.

Bots blight campaign

A flood of fake social media profiles inundating political discussion and reaching millions of Australians during an election campaign has sparked warnings of a growing threat.

Almost one in five accounts analysed on X, formerly Twitter, discussing the election were fake and used AI-generated images and emotionally manipulative language, according to disinformation detection company Cyabra.

One account posted more than 500 times and reached about 726,000 users, with the scale and impact of disinformation campaigns underscoring the growing threat to electoral integrity, the company said.

Disinformation and spam posts targeted Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton while other bots pushed pro-Labor narratives to give the impression there’s a groundswell of support, it found.

The primary narrative promoted by the bots was attacking the Labor Party to discredit Mr Albanese and “undermine his political standing” by amplifying messages about the government being incompetent, economically damaging and too progressive, it found.

“This messaging was deliberately amplified to erode public trust ahead of the election,” Cyabra said in its Disinformation Down Under report.

Public discussion centred around Labor and the coalition was analysed throughout March using AI technology to discover fake activity, which can include the frequency of posting and language and hashtags used by bots.

The accounts coined hashtags including “Labor fail” and “Labor lies” and ridiculed the prime minister with nicknames like “Fweeby Albaneesy”, in reference to receiving free upgrades.

Ridicule and emotionally charged language were used to maximise visibility and provoke engagement with satire and memes employed to further the reach of each post, Cyabra said.

The fake profiles on X attacked both major parties but with different strategies as the coalition was targeted with pro-Labor posts including with hashtags like “Dutton must go” and “LNP corruption party”.

Fake profiles sought to portray Dutton as out of touch or inept while branding the party as broadly incompetent and corrupt, “creating the illusion of widespread support for the current administration and reinforcing partisan sentiment”, the report found.

Bots even outperformed real users on several occasions, “allowing them to dominate the narrative,” it said.

“The overwhelming presence and influence of these fake accounts point to a deliberate attempt to distort public opinion, drown out authentic voices, and manipulate the political conversation on social media.”

But it was hard to determine who was behind the bots and targeted misinformation campaigns, the company said.

Australian Electoral Commission acting electoral commissioner Jeff Pope has warned of potential impacts to integrity, including misinformation and disinformation campaigns.

There’s also perceived concern about the impact of AI impacting electoral integrity despite actual incidents in 2024, dubbed the year of elections as half the world’s population went to the polls, being very low, the acting commissioner said.

Melbourne University’s deputy vice chancellor Michael Wesley pointed to the violent Capitol riots in the United States as he warned of increasing political polarisation, the rise of extremist candidates and parties and the de-legitimisation of previously trusted sources like media, government and universities.

—AAP