Anzac Day 2025 LIVE updates: Albanese, Dutton attend dawn services amid federal election campaign
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4.22am
Two-up: a 'fair dinkum' tradition or a devilish game of skill?
Penry Buckley
Heads or tails? It's a simple choice, with a fair outcome. But it's only in Australia that it's become a national pastime and, some might argue, a sport.
The game of two-up, where punters bet on the outcome of two coins thrown into the air, has a reputation for being 'fair dinkum', a reminder of its 19th-century goldfield beginnings.
But its uptake by Australian soldiers in both world wars has seen it enshrined in the national mythology. The game is now played play once a year on Anzac Day with near-religious reverence at pubs and RSLs following dawn services nationwide.
So as you enter the ring this Anzac Day, what can you use to your advantage? Is a coin toss ever really fair, and is two-up a fiendish game of skill or one of pure chance?
You can read the full story by Penry Buckley here.
4.18am
Rinehart calls for enormous increase in defence spending
By Paul Sakkal and Shane Wright
At last night's Anzac Day eve service in Sydney, Australia's richest person, mining magnate Gina Rinehart, called for a gargantuan rise in defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP, as Peter Dutton and Richard Marles watched on from the audience.
Dutton, Marles and former prime ministers Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and John Howard were guests at the Channel Seven Anzac Day Eve ceremony just outside the Sydney Opera House.
It came a day after the Coalition leader said if his party formed government, it would take defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030 and to 3 per cent by the middle of the next decade.
Defence spending under Labor is projected to rise from 2.02 per cent of GDP this year to 2.3 per cent by 2034, making the Coalition's 3 per cent long-term pledge significantly more ambitious.
You can read the full story here.
4.13am
Welcome
By Nick Newling
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the federal election.
Today we bring you a special early edition of the national blog, in which we will be following commemorations of Anzac day across the country.
My name is Nick Newling, and I'll be taking you through all the morning's news as it happens.
We are expecting to see both Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton attend services this morning.
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