Everything is pointing to election announcement on Friday

It seems Anthony Albanese didn’t take to the suggestion that he should call the election today (27 March) if he wanted to be really mean and deny Peter Dutton his budget reply speech.

The Prime Minister has confirmed, however, that he will be visiting the Governor-General “pretty imminently” to ask for the House of Representatives to be dissolved and for writs to be issued for an election to be held on a yet-to-be-stated Saturday in May.

It is looking increasingly like Friday – that’s tomorrow – is the day everyone will find out when Australians are next going back to the polls.

Sources have told Region that while only the PM and his closest confidants know when he’s calling the election, all things are pointing to him doing it on Friday.

And that would likely mean a 3rd of May election day.

That’s the buzz around Parliament House, but the PM could still surprise everyone and keep the nation waiting a little longer to find out just when they will be voting.

During a Thursday morning radio interview, Mr Albanese confirmed he wouldn’t be calling the election today, but he would be doing it soon.

“It will be in May, I can guarantee that, and it’ll be called pretty imminently. I can assure you of that as well, I think,” the Prime Minister said.

“I can confirm that I’m not calling it today, but I will call it soon. I think that Australians want to get on with it.”

Another giveaway was a briefly appearing social media post from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet announcing that caretaker conventions have been activated.

“The Government is now operating in accordance with caretaker conventions, pending the outcome of the 2025 federal election,” the post on X said.

“Comments have been disabled for this period.”

The post disappeared almost as fast as it went up, most likely because someone inside PM&C jumped the gun.

It went up just before 12:30 pm and was gone four minutes later.

The House is still sitting, so the public service is not in caretaker mode quite yet.

The gaffe was brought up in Budget Estimates, with Liberal Senator Michaelia Cash asking department officials why the post went up at all.

While officials looked to each other for an explanation, Foreign Minster Penny Wong, sitting with them lightheartedly, put a little more pressure on.

“It will be interesting to see who fesses up to this,” she said.

No names were mentioned, but it was left up to first assistant secretary Andrew Walter to offer the only explanation available.

“Obviously, this was an error, and we apologise for that,” he said.

Another clue that the election might be called as soon as Friday is in the letter Clerk of the Senate Richard Pye sent to all public service agency heads.

Reported exclusively by Region, the letter says he had been “asked” to inform them about how estimates would be affected if “the Prime Minister calls an election in coming days”.

The Clerk doesn’t say who asked him to relay that message, but it was obviously the government, with the directive most likely coming from the President of the Senate.

Under the title “Effect of prorogation”, the letter (which Region has seen) tells Australian Public Service bosses that should the G-G prorogue the parliament during this scheduled estimates period, any hearings that had not already started would not take place.

Estimates were brought forward in light of the early Budget and imminent election and have been scheduled to run between 27 March (today) and 4 April.

They will almost certainly be cut short now.

Meanwhile, all eyes will be on the Opposition Leader tonight delivering his budget reply speech.

Mr Dutton has labelled the Budget’s tax cuts as a “cruel hoax” and the Coalition voted against them in both the House of Representatives and the Senate on Wednesday.

The legislation passed without the Opposition; however, the Coalition is now promising to repeal them if it wins the election.

Mr Dutton said his speech tonight would contain significant cost-of-living relief measures and has already flagged that he would reduce the fuel excise if he becomes prime minister.