What you need to know about Australia’s election

“I will be seeking a mandate from the Australian people as the prime minister of this country to carry out this (economic) plan”.

Mr Shorten said he and his party planned to fight the election campaign on several issues.

The call makes the election campaign the longest since the 1960s. “Or do we go back to Labor, which has no plan, only politics?”

Nearly eight months after replacing Tony Abbott as prime minister, Mr Turnbull asked Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove for a double dissolution poll – the first since 1987 – that will see 150 lower house seats and all 76 Senate seats up for grabs.

On the deck of a waterfront pub in northern Tasmania on Sunday, Mr Shorten repeated the slogan as he declared the July 2 poll is not a choice about political personalities, but rather what sort of Australia voters want to live in.

The coalition used the annual federal budget on Tuesday to outline its campaign platform of boosting jobs and economic growth as Australia charts a rocky path away from its dependence on mining after an unprecedented resources investment boom.

Labor opposition leader Bill Shorten, a 48-year-old ambitious former union chief, is aiming to add his name to the prime ministerial list when he takes on the Liberal Party’s Turnbull in what is tipped to be a tightly contested vote.

Turnbull, running neck-and-neck in opinion polls with center-left Labor, confirmed on Wednesday he would seek a July 2 election as he looks to cash in on a budget plan outlined the day before aimed at creating jobs and spurring growth.

On the eve of the 10-year anniversary of the Beaconsfield Mine disaster – where a union-leading Bill Shorten first landed on the national stage – Mr Shorten drew on the catastrophe to praise those involved for “working together and looking after their mates”.

Mr Shorten targeted the government’s for tax cuts he said, “rewards millionaires with a $17,000 tax cut to provide $50 billion of tax breaks to Australia’s largest companies”.

Labor is maintaining its lead of 51 per cent to the coalition’s 49 per cent in two-party preferred terms, the latest Newspoll shows.

“It is a vital economic reform and critical to our continued success”, Mr Turnbull said.

The latest Galaxy poll puts the two parties at 50-50, with the coalition on 42 per cent of the primary vote (down three points on the 2013 result) and Labor on 36 per cent (up three points).

“We have proven ourselves but we are merely at the start”, he said.