Federal election 2025: Peter Dutton keeps on trucking in bid for marginal seats

After stumbling on a key economic policy, Peter Dutton hopes turning attention back to the cost of petrol will fuel his path to victory.

For the fourth time in as many days on the election campaign trail, the opposition leader on Monday visited a service station to spruik plans to halve the fuel excise for motorists.

This time he went a step further, turning up to the Adelaide servo in the passenger seat of a fuel tanker.

Mr Dutton then helped to fill up a campaign car for Liberal candidate Nicolle Flint, who is running in her former seat of Boothby as the coalition look to reclaim ground in South Australia.

Adelaide is a Labor heartland but the opposition is confident it can win back Boothby, with Labor holding the marginal seat on a 3.3 per cent margin.

It wasn’t the only road-related announcement for the day, with Mr Dutton earlier announcing an $840 million freight bypass in Adelaide.

“It provides a safety corridor, and it provides just something that every other state takes for granted,” he told reporters.

“We can’t have trucks coming down through one of the most dangerous intersections and road corridors in our country and pretend that nothing is to be done about it.”

The infrastructure announcement was made in the car park of a Sikh temple, with Mr Dutton also meeting worshippers from the community.

The temple sits in the electorate of Sturt, the only Liberal-held seat in Adelaide, which it maintains on a razor-thin margin of 0.5 per cent.

While campaigning alongside Ms Flint, Mr Dutton rejected suggestions the coalition has a problem with female voters after he was forced to backflip on a proposed work-from-home ban for public servants.

“We have the same number of women in the shadow cabinet as Labor does, exactly the same number,” he said.

“We have, I think, demonstrated in our policies that we want to help families, we want to help women, young women, and we want to make sure that we can do that in a vibrant economy.

“Are we going to be a better government for women and families? Absolutely.”

Ms Flint was the MP for the seat between 2016 and 2022 and announced she would step away from politics before the last election.

“It’s absolutely integral to our success that we win seats here in South Australia and Nicolle has demonstrated (that),” Mr Dutton said.

“Nicolle is seen as a hard worker, she is out seven days a week at the moment and (we) think she can win … but we need to win Boothby and other seats in South Australia.”