Tropical Cyclone Alfred has scuppered the prime minister's plans to call the federal election for the 12th of April.
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00:00Well, Jo, we know the Prime Minister was planning to visit Perth this weekend to celebrate the
00:06likely Labor win in the West Australian state election, but he had to can those plans.
00:11He was planning to call the election on Sunday for April 12th, but that is also now looking
00:17highly unlikely.
00:19The fact that the cyclone is only expected to make landfall tomorrow, obviously highly
00:24populated areas, sources close to the Prime Minister say it's looking very unlikely that
00:29he will in fact call the election this weekend.
00:32What it means is that Parliament will be returning on schedule for a March 25 budget, Jim Chalmers'
00:40third budget.
00:41One that he says he's been preparing for, but one very few people had expected him to
00:45actually hand down.
00:47We know behind the scenes they've been working sort of two tracks, they've been working towards
00:50the budget, but also towards an economic statement which Labor was going to release publicly
00:56shortly after calling the election for April 12th.
01:00But here we are, the cyclone pretty much washing away the Prime Minister's plans here and MPs
01:08preparing now to return to Parliament on March 25, which certainly they weren't expecting
01:13to do.