After almost six weeks crisscrossing the continent, Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese will on Friday make their last pitch to undecided voters before polling day on Saturday.
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Our reporters on the road Dan Jervis-Bardy and Finn McHugh preview how the two men vying to be Prime Minister will spend the final full day of the 2022 election campaign.
PM on the defensive in Perth
Mr Morrison has flown west in a last-minute bid to repel Mr Albanese's march through WA.
The Prime Minister has been on the offensive in the federal election campaign's final week, visiting a swag of marginal Labor seats he hopes to win in Queensland, NT, Victoria, Tasmania and NSW.
But Mr Morrison will start Friday on the backfoot after flying into Perth late on Thursday night.
Labor is confident of winning Swan and Pearce, two of the seats Mr Morrison is reportedly set to visit during a final dash through WA.
Mr Albanese has campaigned heavily in the state, attempting to leverage the popularity of Labor Premier Mark McGowan into electoral gains for the federal opposition.
The Labor leader launched his campaign at Perth's Optus Stadium and has fronted the cameras alongside Mr McGowan during the crucial final week.
If Mr Morrison can hold ground in WA, Labor's task of finding the additional seven seats it needs to form government becomes far more difficult.
On the flipside, if the Coalition loses even one seat in WA then its hopes of clinging onto majority government will take a major hit.
Mr Morrison's campaign was handed an 11th-hour boost with the release on Thursday of figures showing Australia's jobless rate has dipped below 4 per cent for the first time since 1974.
The Prime Minister said the 3.9 per cent unemployment rate was vindication of the Coalition's economic plan.
After launching the Coalition's campaign in Brisbane on Sunday, Mr Morrison spent much of the final week in outer-suburban housing estates selling his contentious proposal to allow Australians access to their superannuation to help purchase their first property.
Where Scott Morrison has campaigned in the final week
- Monday: Blair, QLD (Labor-held on a margin of 1.2 per cent), Leichhardt, QLD (Liberal-held on 4.2 per cent)
- Tuesday: Lingiari, NT (Labor-held on 5.5 per cent), Solomon, NT (Labor-held on 3.1 per cent)
- Wednesday: Corangamite, VIC (Labor-held on 1 per cent), Braddon, TAS (Liberal-held on 5.2 per cent)
- Thursday: Lyons, TAS (Labor-held on 5.2 per cent), Werriwa, NSW (Labor-held on 5.5 per cent)
- Friday: Swan, WA (Liberal-held by 3.2 per cent), Pearce, WA (Liberal-held by 5.2 per cent)
Albanese picks up pace in home stretch
Anthony Albanese will launch a three-state blitz on Friday, before what he hopes is a victorious homecoming to Sydney on election day.
After what had been a moderate pace at the beginning of the campaign, exacerbated by a bout of COVID-19, has picked up pace in the home stretch.
Mr Albanese has zipped across NSW, the ACT, and WA in the past two days after trips to the NT and Queensland earlier in the week.
A whirlwind round trip to Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia on the last full day of campaigning will make it every state and territory in the last week.
Mr Albanese's team, brought to the fore during their leader's COVID-enforced absence, will also fan out across the country for a final push.
The South Australian stop will no doubt focus on Boothby, held by outgoing Liberal MP Nicolle Flint on a wafer-thin margin of 1.4 per cent.
Strategists believe it would take a large general swing to turn any other SA electorate red, but the party is buoyed by a dominant win at the state election just months ago.
It's not yet known where Mr Albanese will travel in Victoria, but Labor is looking to pick up Chisholm, held by Gladys Liu, while staving off the Liberals in Corangamite. A handful of other seats in the state are under threat from so-called "teal independents".
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It was a Thursday morning stop in the Sydney seat of Bennelong, where Labor believes it is in with a shout of reclaiming a seat formerly held by prime minister John Howard.
A combination of Scott Morrison's personal unpopularity in more moderate seats, and the fact long-term Liberal MP John Alexander is retiring, puts the electorate in play.
Queensland has been a particular fixation for Mr Albanese in the past week, hitting a number of Brisbane electorates as well as campaigning near Cairns.
He held a campaign rally alongside the state's Labor heavyweights last week.
He returned on Thursday, stopping at pre-poll booths in Ryan (held by Liberal MP Julian Simmonds) and Dickson, where Labor candidate Ali France is launching another bid to unseat Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.
Where Anthony Albanese has campaigned in the final week
- Monday: Swan, WA (Liberal held 3.2 by per cent), Hasluck, WA (Liberal held by 5.9 per cent), Pearce, WA (Liberal held by 5.2 per cent)
- Tuesday: Hasluck, WA (Liberal held by 5.9 per cent), Swan, WA (Liberal held 3.2 by per cent)
- Wednesday: Canberra, ACT (Labor held by 17.1 per cent), Fowler, NSW (Labor held by 14 per cent)
- Thursday: Bennelong, NSW (Liberal held by 6.9 per cent), Dickson, QLD (Liberal held by 4.6 per cent), Ryan, QLD (Liberal held by 6.0 per cent)
- Friday: Sturt, SA (Liberal held by 6.9 per cent), Boothby, SA (Liberal held by 1.4 per cent)
Dan Jervis-Bardy
