Albanese, Dutton parrot debunked claims in election debate

Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have repeated debunked claims as they went head to head in the first debate of the 2025 election. The prime minister and opposition leader took questions from an audience of undecided voters in Western Sydney as part of the Sky News event, covering the cost of living crisis, healthcare, migration, housing and energy policy.

AAP FactCheck assessed the key claims, identifying cherry-picked figures, faulty comparisons and cases in which both leaders left out key context from their arguments.

On nuclear

Albanese and Dutton presented sharply different estimates of what the Coalition’s nuclear power policy would cost Australians during the debate.

The prime minister repeated a key Labor talking point that the Coalition’s nuclear plan would cost Australians $600 billion — a cherry-picked figure from a 2024 Smart Energy Council report on the technology. Dutton, meanwhile, claimed the Coalition’s nuclear plan would cost about $330 billion, which is based on a comparison that a leading energy expert called “fundamentally flawed”.

Numerous experts have told AAP FactCheck that Labor and the Coalition are overconfident in competing claims about what nuclear might cost, pointing to huge uncertainty in estimates.

On debt

On the subject of government debt and which side of politics has historically managed the budget better, Dutton claimed the Albanese government has spent an extra $425 billion. However, the calculations behind the figure are problematic, relying on highly uncertain medium-term budget forecasts. The $425 billion figure compares payments against the Coalition’s pre-election budget outlook; previously the difference was $347 billion, but it increased after the last budget.

Additionally, experts told AAP FactCheck the Coalition has used the broadest measure of government spending, which doesn’t accurately capture policy-related spending.

On immigration

The opposition leader attacked Labor over immigration numbers during the debate, repeating claims the government will bring in almost two million people over five years.

But experts have told AAP FactCheck this claim omits key context, including the role Coalition policies played in lifting net overseas migration numbers after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Experts said Coalition policies that extended visas during the pandemic have helped drive down migrant departures, which have played a key role in increasing net migration figures.

On renewables

Dutton repeated a claim that Labor’s energy plan is “renewables-only”.

AAP FactCheck has previously found that claim to be false — Labor’s energy plan retains a key role for gas generation through to 2050 and beyond.

Experts said gas will play a particularly important role at times when renewable energy generation is low, including during winter months when demand for heating is elevated.

On Medicare

In response to a voter’s question about Medicare costs, Albanese claimed bulk billing was in a “free fall” when Labor came to power in 2022.

AAP FactCheck has previously found this claim to be misleading — bulk billing rates were going down before the 2022 election, but fell more rapidly after the election.

Experts said there were multiple and complex reasons why bulk billing rates have fallen since 2021, and the decline was likely regardless of which party won the 2022 election.

On power prices

Dutton repeated claims Australians are paying three times the cost of electricity compared to Ontario in Canada, where nuclear power is used.

The claim has previously drawn criticism for relying on the highest energy prices in South Australia, with experts telling AAP FactCheck global price comparisons are problematic.

On hospital funding

As the debate turned to their respective records on health, the prime minister accused Dutton of cutting $50 billion from hospitals.

The claim, which Labor has made previously, refers to the Coalition’s 2014 budget when Dutton was health minister.

The opposition leader hit back, telling the audience there “were no cuts” to hospitals in the budget.

Experts told AAP FactCheck that while it’s accurate to say Dutton tried to cut $50 billion from hospitals funding as health minister under plans announced in the 2014 budget, the Coalition eventually abandoned the largest of the budget cuts after public backlash.

Malcolm Turnbull, as prime minister, later lifted hospital funding, though the increase did not return spending to the levels forecast under Julia Gillard’s Labor government in 2013-14.

This article is republished from Aap factcheck.

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