LIVE: Election 2025 – Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton’s better halves reveal why they think their man should be the PM

The wives and partners of political leaders are often seen but not heard.

But the better halves of both men vying for the keys to the Lodge have outlined why they think they should be the next PM in a revealing piece in the Daily Telegraph.

Kirilly Dutton, Peter Dutton’s wife (pictured below) and the mother of their three children, has insisted ‘Above all else, Peter is a listener’.

‘He isn’t one of those politicians who speaks over people or tells people how it is,’ she writes.

‘He asks questions. He wants to hear other people’s stories and perspectives. And that’s what makes him attuned to the views and values of everyday Australians.’

Kirilly, who ran a chain of successful childcare centres, stressed her husband of 22 years had ‘strength of character’, but insisted he was ‘fair and compassionate too’.

‘From his time as a police officer through to today, he is driven by a desire to protect others and a clear sense of morality,’ she wrote.

‘He knows there is right and wrong, and good and evil, in the world.’

Meanwhile, Anthony Albanese’s fiancée Jodie Haydon, namechecks former Labor PM Julia Gillard as an ‘important trailblazer in public life and a woman I very much admire’.

Jodie, a woman’s advocate and financial adviser, stressed her partner’s feminist credentials – and took a sly dig at the Coalition’s abandoned policy of ‘ending’ WFH in the process.

‘There can be a lot of noise in politics. But I’m confident women can spot a prime minister who respects and values them,’ she wrote.

‘Anthony understands the importance of conditions like flexible work so that families can balance their work demands and see their kids, families and friends.’

Like Kirilly, Jodie highlighted how her partner was ‘tough’ but also ‘kind and empathetic’.

‘He listens. He’s tuned in. He is loyal. He is confident enough to be who he is – and he’s never forgotten where he came from,’ she added.

For a lifelong political tragic like Anthony Albanese, you might assume that rising to the highest public office in the land would be considered his ‘dream job’.

But the Labor leader has revealed his sights were not set on becoming PM in primary school.

‘Certainly not, I wanted to play half back for South (Sydney Rabbitohs),’ he told reporters on Friday morning, adding: ‘I wasn’t good enough.’

In an energetic press conference, the PM did not betray any nerves.

Instead, he sought to criticise comments Peter Dutton made earlier in the campaign about preferring to live in Kirribili House in Sydney over the Lodge in Canberra.

‘It was the moment where he (Dutton) showed that he’d measured up the curtains and was thinking about his position as prime minister that he assumed,’ Albanese said.

‘I’ve never done that. I don’t take the Australian people for granted.

‘I’m working my guts out to ensure there’s a majority government tomorrow.’

He insisted Labor had a ‘mountain to climb’, noting that no PM has been re-electd since 2004.

A party-hopping wannabe MP gave a glowing reference for an Iraqi refugee – but didn’t mention his VERY sickening past.