Rival Australian party leaders each claim underdog status ahead of general elections

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and opposition leader Peter Dutton are each claiming to be the underdog ahead of general elections on Saturday.

Albanese, who leads the center-left Labor Party, visited the eastern states of Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania on Friday. Dutton, who leads an alliance of conservatives parties called the Liberal-National Coalition, campaigned in the states of South Australia and Western Australia.

Albanese noted an Australian prime minister had not led a party to consecutive election victories since John Howard, a conservative, in 2004. Howard’s 11-year reign ended in 2007, when he lost his own seat.

“There’s a lot of undecided voters. We have a mountain to climb. No one’s been re-elected since 2004,” Albanese told reporters on Friday.

Dutton was confident undecided voters would back his coalition. In Australia, where voting is compulsory, many who don’t have strong preferences still turn out to vote to avoid a fine, often not picking a candidate until election day.

“We are the underdog and I think a lot of people will be expressing a real protest vote at this election as well because the prime minister believes he’s won this election,” Dutton said last week.

The first election in which younger voters outnumber Baby Boomers

Both campaigns have focused on Australia’s changing demographics. The election is the first in Australia in which Baby Boomers, born between the end of World War II and 1964, are outnumbered by younger voters.

Both campaigns promised policies to help first-home buyers buy into a property market that is too expensive for many.

A major point of difference is energy. The opposition has promised to build seven government-funded nuclear power plants across Australia that would begin generating electricity from 2035.

Gas-fired electricity would fill the gap between aging coal-fired plants closing and nuclear generators taking their place.

Labor plans to have 82% of Australia’s energy grid powered by renewables including solar and wind turbines by 2030 and to rely less on gas.

The party has warned that Dutton’s coalition would make massive cuts to services to pay for its nuclear ambitions.

Labor has accused the coalition of mimicking U.S. President Donald Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency by promising to slash more than one in five federal public sector jobs.

“We don’t need to copy America or anywhere else. We need the Australian way,” Albanese said on Friday.

Senator wants to ‘make Australia great again’

Opposition senator Jacinta Nampijnpa Price last month said she was not referencing Trump when she told supporters her administration would “make Australia great again.”

Price, who would be responsible for reducing the federal public service by 41,000 jobs if the coalition were elected, told reporters she didn’t recall using the words reminiscent of the Republicans’ “Make America Great Again” slogan.

Dutton said on Friday his Liberal Party-led government would reduce government debt.

“I want to make sure that we can get our country back on track, that we can manage our economy well and only a Liberal government can do that,” Dutton said.

“If we manage the economy well, we can bring inflation down and make sure that we help families with the cost-of-living crisis,” he added.