YOU heard it first here! The Federal election will be held on Saturday, April 5, little more than four weeks from now.
How do we know for sure?
One of the candidates told the Sentinel-Times today (Wednesday, February 26) that they attempted to make a booking for postal ballot material to be printed but were told they were booked out printing for the Labor Party, material that had to be ready to be posted on Monday (March 3).
“It’s a sure sign that the Prime Minister will be driving up Dunrossil Drive in Canberra this Sunday (March 2) to meet the Governor General and call an election.”
Although the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese could also go on April 12, April 19 or April 26 and as late as May 17, our source said there were compelling reasons why April 5 was the obvious date.
“They won’t go on April 12 because school holidays in some states start on Friday, April 11, it’s also the start of Passover which wouldn’t be a good look for obvious reasons.
“April 19 is the Easter weekend, and April 26 is the Anzac Day weekend.
“There’s two Saturdays they could go in May, but they don’t want to wait that long."
Such a delay would require the government to bring down a Federal Budget on Tuesday, March 25 which they will not want to do.
“The Prime Minister will call it this Sunday and the date will be Saturday, April 5 – lock it in.”
Sky News political editor Andrew Clennell already called the date for Saturday, April 5 on the day the Reserve Bank lowered the interest rates for the first time since 2020.
“The Prime Minister and his party officials would have polled post that (the interest rate decision) and had a look to see if it’s their best position and then decided to go,” said Clennell.
“There’s not going to be an election called this Sunday (February 23) and so to me that rules out March 29 and the reason for that is they don’t want to go two weeks out from the WA election. But they’re prepared to be one week out from the election, one week before March 8.
“There has to be 33 days between the writs being issued by the Governor General and the election date which in this case takes us to April 5.”
So, Saturday, April 5 it is!