Afternoon Update Election 2025: campaign quietens after pope’s death; Clive Palmer’s ‘tampering’ claims; third leaders’ debate tonight

Anthony Albanese leaves the morning Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne. Photograph: Christopher Hopkins/The Guardian

Good afternoon and welcome to today’s election edition of Afternoon Update.

In the shadow of Pope Francis’s death overnight, the federal election campaign must go on. The day was not for “overt politicking”, as Peter Dutton put it, but a moment to reflect on the pontiff’s legacy and connect with Australian Catholics. As commonwealth flags flew at half mast, Anthony Albanese began the morning with mass at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral, after which a partially cleared campaign diary gave him time to pause.