Australia’s Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton in a prime ministerial battle that's been decades in the making

By Brett Worthington, ABC

Analysis - There's little Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton don't know about each other's political instincts.

Veterans of the parliament, they've sat opposite each other for decades. These last three years, sitting just a sword's length apart in parliament, they've had even a closer look.

Having sized each other up, they now face the ultimate test.

Come 3 May only one can be prime minister.

For Albanese, the stakes seem even higher. His job security is on the line. A loss in the coming weeks will likely stain the end of an almost 30-year federal political career.

The Albanese-Dutton contest is one that seemed unlikely two years ago.

Albanese and Labor charged into government and enjoyed a protracted honeymoon.

At his first caucus meeting he told colleagues that if Labor lived up to what it told voters before the 2022 election, the party should get at least two terms in power.

Soaring in the polls, the ALP defied history and became the first government to win a seat from an opposition at a by-election in more than 100 years.

Fast-forward to today and Labor finds itself facing the prospect of defying history again - but not in a good way.

Not since 1931 has a federal government failed to win a second term. If the polls are to be believed, another once-in-a-100-year political event could be on the cards.

Referendum and rates turned the tide

Peter Dutton was facing open questions about his leadership after his party lost the once safe Liberal seat of Aston, in Melbourne's outer eastern suburbs in early 2023.

The ex-cop turned political strongman was always going to need to win seats in Victoria if he was to become prime minister.

Liberals wondered if he was unelectable in Victoria.

Within months though, he'd silenced those critics.

Dutton gambled his leadership on the Voice referendum. Just 90 minutes after the polls closed on 14 October, the proposal was dead, and the opposition leader was the biggest political winner.

He capitalised on the pain households were experiencing from inflation-savaging budgets and hasn't looked back since.

Dutton too has a safety net underneath him that Albanese isn't afforded. Unrivalled within the caucus, losing looks different for him.

History suggests opposition doesn't win after one term. It's why Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten were able to hold onto their leaderships after losing close elections.

Should the Coalition fall short, Dutton is widely tipped to remain leader. A two-term strategy worked for Abbott, less so for Shorten.

A loss for Albanese would trigger generational renewal for Labor and likely see him retire from politics.

Campaign far from decided

It's not like Labor is without achievements.

An anti-corruption commission has been established, climate targets have been pledged and soured relationships with world leaders repaired.

Labor has delivered two budget surpluses, something that hadn't happened in Australia for almost two decades.

Medicines have been made cheaper, energy bill relief has flowed, taxes have been cut, wages have risen, unemployment has remained steady and record numbers of jobs created.

The ability to offer pre-election cash splashes that have long dominated federal politics haven't been an option this time, amid fears it would likely make inflation worse.

The Reserve Bank's decision to cut rates injected life into Labor's campaign.

In the days before that decision, one Labor MP insisted it was crucial just to keep the government in the fight.

Albanese has often been underestimated but has achieved something his predecessors Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard could not achieve - a publicly united team.

His political opponents arrive at an election day having been light on for policy announcements. But that's not something that stopped John Howard from becoming prime minister in 1996.

A complicated electoral map

Notionally, Labor enters the campaign with 78 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives. The Coalition is on 57, with 15 crossbench and minor party MPs.

The Coalition needs 18 seats to form a majority government. If it's unable to win back the seats it lost to the so-called teal independent MPs, the Liberals will need to win long-held Labor seats.

Scott Morrison hoped to win those seats at the last election but was unsuccessful.

Rising interest rates have made Peter Dutton's task a bit easier, especially in outer suburban Melbourne, which is home to electorates with some of the highest proportions of mortgages in the country.

For Dutton, his message boils down to reminding households about the pain they're feeling, openly questioning if they're better off than they were three years ago.

For Albanese, he'll argue the dice was cast at the last election and that life was always going to be hard this term.

But he will point to falling interest rates as a sign that brighter days are ahead, reminding voters too that inflation is falling but not at the expense of jobs.

These two men have spent three years looking into each other's eyes.

Voters are about to see what they've learned.

-ABC