Minns king of kids as Gladys pops up in marginal seat

Dominic Perrottet hopes to see more of Gladys Berejiklian in marginal seats after the former NSW premier made a surprise appearance to help out an old ally bidding for re-election.

The smiling senior Optus executive was captured in a selfie with former cabinet minister Stuart Ayres after dinner with the Penrith MP and his wife, senator Marise Payne, on Wednesday night.

Mr Ayres shared the image to Facebook as he battles to retain his lower house seat, which he holds on a margin of 0.6 per cent.

It comes days after Ms Berejiklian was notably absent from the Liberals’ campaign launch but Mr Perrottet denied he was snubbed.

“Not at all, it’s great to have Glad as part of the campaign,” he told reporters on Thursday.

“She was a great premier of NSW and to see her campaigning in Penrith, I know will make a real difference.”

While enjoying soaring popularity through the initial months of the pandemic, Ms Berejiklian’s final year in power was overshadowed by an anti-corruption inquiry that exposed her romantic relationship with another Liberal MP, Daryl Maguire.

She denied any wrongdoing and the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s report is not expected until after the election.

The selfie came hours after Mr Perrottet and the man vying for his job, Labor leader Chris Minns, both said Ms Berejiklian hadn’t been treated unfairly by the commission.

The pair headed to the crucial western Sydney seat of Parramatta on Thursday before announcing programs targeting low-income households.

Students at Maronite College of the Holy Family treated Mr Minns to a rock star reception as he pledged to double a school breakfast program, initiated by Mr Perrottet in 2019, to 1000 schools.

“We want kids to have a full belly so they can have a full mind at school,” he said.

Mr Perrottet pledged $10 million to provide another 10,000 to 15,000 households with financial counselling, after hearing Anglicare was having to put families on counselling waiting lists.

“People are finding rents, mortgages and the price of groceries have gone up,” financial counsellor Beth Schwalbe later said.

“There are no other supports out there and financial counselling is a really important way that people can get some help.”

Meanwhile, the coalition flagged potentially hardening protest laws again after an activist who blocked Sydney Harbour Bridge won an appeal.

Deanna “Violet” Maree Coco’s 15-month jail sentence was wiped by a District Court judge on Wednesday after the court heard police made a false assertion and she was now channelling her diagnosed climate anxiety into productive community work.

Elsewhere, a Liberal candidate said he’d “definitely” moved on from fringe vaccine and climate change views he expressed on social media in recent years.

As recently as October 2022, Bill Burst reposted an article claiming to prove net zero was a “woke scam” with the comment: “says it all.”

He also made several posts in support of then-Liberal MP Craig Kelly and the drug ivermectin, which he claimed had “saved” millions of people.

Burst told AAP on Thursday afternoon he backed Liberal policy, including its net-zero target, and lauded Treasurer Matt Kean’s renewable energy policy.

He believed in climate change but it’s about “how do you get to the end result”.

“On vaccines, a lot has happened in the last three years, we’ve got a lot more evidence in, vaccines have undoubtedly saved lives,” the candidate for Maroubra told AAP.

“There was some ivermectin that was used to treat malaria.”

A review of medical literature to January 2021 by British institute Cochrane found it was unclear whether community administration of ivermectin had an effect on malaria transmission.

Early voting opens on Saturday, with one in 12 NSW voters already applying for postal voting, above expectation.