Political leaders’ kids are routinely put on display to share the glory or the pain of election night. Earlier, they’re often at campaign launches to “humanise” the candidates.

Peter Dutton pulled out all stops with the family for his Sunday launch. Tom, Harry and Rebecca were not just there in person, but “virtually” too, with a video showing dad hearing messages from the family.

Rebecca went to “the potato head thing”, saying it was “all a bit of a joke to us. We still often call you Mr Potato Head.” Dutton replied that “I’m pretty relaxed. I can give back as good as I get.” Hearing Harry on the video, he judged his son “sounded a bit croaky […] He might have been out late last night.”

And so it went. All nice and safe, in a campaign sense. But Dutton should have left it at that.

Instead, on Monday Harry, who is an apprentice carpenter, joined his father on the campaign trail, to help him sell the message about the unaffordability of housing.

Harry, it turns out, is an aspiring house buyer, which is not surprising. After all, his dad bought his first house at age 19, and is proud of the fact, often mentioning it in soft interviews.

Harry told reporters, “I am saving up for a house and so is my sister, Beck, and a lot of my mates, but as you probably heard, it’s almost impossible to get in – in the current state,” Harry said.

“So I mean we’re saving like mad, but it doesn’t look like we’ll get there in the near future. But we’d love that to change.”

One has to wonder about the judgement of the Liberal strategists. Dutton has owned a lot of property over the years, and is well off. Did no one anticipate that the obvious questioning from the hungry media would be: won’t the bank of mum and dad help Harry and Rebecca?

Of course it came.

One questioner asked: “Are you planning to act as the bank of mum and dad like so many Australian families are having to do?” Dutton answered generally – that he didn’t want a situation where  these were the only kids that could buy houses.

Then later came the explicit question: “You brought your own son Harry out here. He spoke about how hard it is to save for a deposit. So in that case, you’re doing pretty well yourself – why won’t you support him a bit and give him a bit of help with getting his house?”

Dutton did not address that sticky one, saying rather that he hadn’t finished answering the previous question.

Politicians perennially complain about how hard the political life is for their families.

Indeed. Sometimes it’s best to leave the kids at home.

Albanese dodges question about Plibersek

This is the second campaign in a row that’s put a spotlight on the strained relationship between Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek.

In 2022 observers asked “where’s Tanya?” when Plibersek, one of Labor’s most popular retail politicians, seemed to have a low profile. Plibersek produced evidence of her intense round of campaigning, but it was still clear she was being underused.

Albanese and Plibersek are rivals in the left from way back. After the 2022 win, instead of appointing her education minister, as she’d  expected, the new PM put her into environment, where she’s had to rule on fossil fuel projects and other matters especially tricky for someone from the left. Late last year, Albanese intervened when Plibersek thought she was headed to a deal on the Nature Positive legislation, declaring the Senate numbers were not there. More compelling with him was pressure from Western Australian Premier Roger Cook, who was facing an election.

On Monday Plibersek found herself having to explain an uncomfortable moment that had caught media attention at  Sunday’s Labor launch.

At these gatherings a great deal of kissing and hugging goes on, even among politicians who don’t like each other much. So Plibersek was about to hug Albanese, but he grabbed her hands instead.

Asked on Monday Morning TV  about what was described as an “awkward moment”, Plibersek explained it away, even more awkwardly. “Do you know what, I reckon  we should still all be elbow bumping, because during an election campaign, the last thing you want is to catch a cold from someone. So that’s on me. I should have done the elbow bump, I reckon.”

Albanese was quizzed later about whether he’d keep Plibersek in the environment portfolio in a second-term government.

He said Plibetsek was doing a “fantastic job” and insisted she had been “a friend of mine for a long period of time”.

He didn’t comment himself on her future job, if the government is returned. Not surprising, at one level. As he says, he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. And later in the day he wouldn’t say whether Julie Collins would again be fisheries minister.

But, given it was Plibersek, his non-answer added to the awkwardness. On the other hand, you’d think Plibersek would probably want out of the environment portfolio, provided that didn’t mean another less-than-ideal post.

A third debate coming

Albanese and Dutton have agreed to a third debate – on Channel 7 on April 27. The second debate, hosted by the ABC, is on Wednesday.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra. Republished from The Conversation.