One stood in the engine room of the economy, the other in the melting pot of a nation.
Two men, rivals seeking the same job, found themselves divided by a continent and speaking in split-screen to an electorate that is set to cast judgement.
For Anthony Albanese, he headed west, taking the stage inside a convention centre ballroom overlooking the Swan River.
This was a prime minister basking in the glow of an electorate that has repeatedly rewarded his party in recent elections.
On the other side of the country, Peter Dutton travelled into Labor’s western Sydney heartland, opting for a smaller Catholic club to outline what he would do as Australia’s 32nd prime minister.
And yet for all their differences, each suddenly found themselves echoing familiar pitches.
Both came with billion-dollar housing pitches. Both offered tax tweaks. Both attracted the despair of economists shaking their heads at the populist pitches being promised on the eve of an election.
For Labor, it offered an eight-year-plan to build 100,000 houses for first-home buyers. In the short-term, those same buyers will be able to buy a place with a 5 per cent deposit, without having to pay mortgage lenders insurance.
More houses and smaller deposits is how Labor is framing its commitment.
For the Coalition, its supercharging of the fight over housing policies will see first home buyers of newly built houses deduct mortgage interest payments from income taxes.
It argues its policy, albeit controversial, would see a household on an average income $12,000 better off each year.
If delivered, it would be a fundamental change to Australia’s tax system.
On taxes, Labor is offering a permanent $1,000 instant deduction, while the Coalition is offering a one-off $1,200 tax offset for low- and middle-income-earners.
Campaign launches are more for the party faithful than they are for the people who will decide the electoral outcome.
These are the kind of people who couldn’t pick David Littleproud or Richard Marles in a line-up, let alone care too much about what they had to say at the launches.
The task for the parties, with voting beginning in a little over a week, is getting their messages into the minds of an electorate increasingly turning away from traditional media.
For Labor, today marked the end of the pitches it will take to the election. It will now spend the final three weeks of the campaign hammering home its promises.
Coalition is running out of days to share its promises
It’s a more complicated question for the Coalition, having left much of its promises to the last minute.
If the Coalition has more to say, it’s running out of days to say it, with the Easter holidays and Anzac Day interrupting the sprint to the finish line.
John Howard often liked to remind his party that you can’t fatten the pig on market day, reminding colleagues they need to put the work in long before voters go into the polls.
Today, he offered a different swine-themed message, simply saying he hoped Dutton would “bring home the bacon”.
To achieve that, the party needed to shake up its campaign, to get the message off its early fumbles — from the work-from-home capitulation, to Jacinta Price’s MAGA moment — and back onto the cost of living.
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Labor is not counting its chickens
Labor insists it isn’t counting its chickens. Still fresh in its mind is the then-opposition leader Anthony Albanese getting off to a shaky start in 2022.
This time, he’s started on a much more stable footing, buoying his optimism he could retain his majority.
Those in the know in the Coalition agree they’re behind.
They concede the first week was costly for the opposition but insist there were improvements in week two. Tellingly, they say that it needs to continue if it’s to be in with a chance.
How a campaign ends, isn’t necessarily the same as the start.
The now-Prime Minister Anthony Albanese can tell you that better than anyone else.
