PM banking on long campaign to grind down Labor poll lead before May 21

MEN IN THE MIDDLE: Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese facing off.

AFTER months of the "faux campaign", Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called on Governor-General David Hurley to dissolve the parliament, hoping that a six-week grind of electioneering will expose enough weakness in the ALP for the Coalition to successfully exploit between now and the election date, Saturday, May 21.

Labor has been well ahead in the polls, but deputy opposition leader Richard Marles summarised things from the opposition's perspective by saying that some in the ALP "still had PTSD" after losing the 2019 election as overwhelming favourites.

"It's going to be a close election," Mr Marles, MP for Corio in Victoria, said before the PM went to Yarralumla. "It is there to be won, but it can be lost."

Much has been made recently of Mr Morrison's character - or lack of it, in the eyes of his critics.

His insistence that the election is "not a referendum, but a choice" is part of an effort to frame the campaign on the Coalition's traditional economic strengths.

Expect more of the PM stressing the government's management of the the nation during the two years of the COVID pandemic, both in terms of public health, and economic recovery.

LIBERAL MESSAGE: Solicitor and former political staffer Brooke Vitnell, the Liberal Party's candidate in the seat of Paterson held by Labor's Meryl Swanson. Picture: Marina Hall

And more about Mr Albanese as an unknown quantity with policies short on the detail required during an election campaign.

Labor blames the opportunities its detailed policies gave the government last time around, but it knows its present "small target" tactics opens it to criticism from the other direction.

The ALP has a clear lead on the two-party preferred vote, but Mr Morrison and Mr Albanese have been neck-and-neck in recent preferred PM polls.

The usual 10 per cent to 15 per cent of undecided voters signify a significant pool of votes that could swing either way.

Minor parties beyond the Greens - including Clive Palmer's United Australia Party and the "Independents" from the Climate 200 group convened by Simon Holmes à Court - could play important roles.

Mr Morrison needs 76 of 151 seats to retain government.

The Liberals want to win back Paterson - held for them before Meryl Swanson by Bob Baldwin - and the retirement of Joel Fitzgibbon in Hunter could yet make for a surprise result.

The polls tip a change of government but anything could happen in 40 days of campaigning.

LABOR VOICES: Opposition leader Anthony Albanese and Paterson MP Meryl Swanson, who is defending an electorate that has swung between Labor and Liberal, and which the government is throwing a lot of resources at in an attempt to lure it into the Coalition fold.

ISSUE: 39,843