Away from the campaign launches and daily press conferences, the social media pages of the major parties provide another window into their strategies for winning over undecided voters.
Short, sharp videos and memes abound.
One from Labor simply puts an iceberg lettuce in the frame, shows a $5 price tag and .
On the Liberal side, Judge Judy clips are .
The Instagram format reduces the campaign to those key economic messages, designed to appeal to a younger audience.
It is the same on TikTok, where the Liberal Party depicts Anthony Albanese as Gollum from Lord of the Rings, plotting to raise taxes for "precious" votes.
While on the Labor page, an ad is produced as an ode to Star Wars in which Princess Leia appeals to Scott Morrison as Obi-Wan Kenobi for help, and he replies "it's not my job".
Away from the lengthy campaign media events, these 20-second clips are designed to reach the audience that may not be tuning in to watch, listen or read the news elsewhere and to reinforce key messages for those who are already engaged.
On roads around the country, there are also signs of real-time advertising being created too for consumption on the social media platforms.
After spending a week on the Morrison campaign bus, at a rally in the Adelaide seat of Boothby, the leader was promoted with a slick online promo produced by party staffers from the footage gathered during the week.
Labor is doing the same. The campaign is being packaged up cleverly by the parties to reach directly to the public without the filter of independent analysis.
There are no federal laws that require political advertising to be truthful, although some state and territory jurisdictions do have such laws in place, such as South Australia and the ACT.
Last year in October, Independent MP Zali Steggall introduced a bill into lower house of federal parliament to address the issue.
The Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Stop the Lies) Bill 2021 encompasses political advertising across all mediums: print, radio, television, telephone or internet.
This week, the news was dominated by Anthony Albanese's advocacy for a , and the if re-elected.
And so the lead-up to the final election push ends up where the campaign began. Labor wants voters to treat the poll as a referendum on Scott Morrison’s character and the Coalition wants to convince voters that it is the safer pair of hands for economic management of the country.
The outcome may well depend on where people are getting the information that helps them make that voting decision; and whether they are relying mainly on direct social media messages or are wading through the six weeks of deeper analysis behind the headlines.
A long election campaign in the wake of the upheaval of the pandemic and years of natural disasters has contributed to public fatigue, a sentiment confirmed by many voters speaking to SBS on the sidelines of campaign events.
Now to find out how that feeds into Saturday’s result, and whether the tumult and minor party and independent factors push a nail-biting contest out far beyond 21 May for a final outcome.
