Speaking on Sky News on the eve of the election, Mr Hawke said objective observers would agree Labor is poised to lose the election, but Prime Minister Kevin Rudd "might have had a different story" if he'd better planned his campaign.

"I don't think it'll go down as a great campaign," Mr Hawke – who led Australia from 1983-1991 – said.

"I thought the [campaign] launch was a marvellous launch, it's one of the best there's been ... It's a pity that that hasn't happened earlier and I think my judgment is, it's a mistake that he didn't go much earlier – if he'd gone pretty soon after he got the leadership and to open with a campaign like that, I think he might have had a different story."

Asked to nominate disappointments in the campaign, Mr Hawke said: "Well obviously, you'd have to put Thursday of last week down as a disappointment, the handling of the material from the Treasury and the Department of Finance; to have a situation where the department heads come out and repudiate political statements is pretty embarrassing. So I would have thought that was sort of the low point of the campaign."

While he wanted to see Labor win, as an objective observer, "... you'd have to say Labor's going to lose".

Mr Hawke said despite six years of seeming instability, "core Labor values have been honoured", and reforms undertaken, including in health, education and disability sector reform.

But, he said, too many within the Labor Party had underestimated Tony Abbott.

"A lot of the Labor party in the last 12 months or so made the mistake of underrating Tony. Tony has historically been capable of some awful gaffes, as people will tell you ... but he's shown considerable discipline in his campaign.

"I think there was the hope, on the part of Labor, that once the campaign got going there'd be some big Tony gaffes – well there haven't been big Tony gaffes and so he remains in a – according to the polls – a strong position.

"He will be in a position where if he has a large majority and a lot of authority but if I can deign to give him advice, I think the essence of leadership is consultation. Not to say, look, I'm the big boss, I know what's best."

Mr Hawke paid tribute to former prime minister Julia Gillard, saying: "No prime minister has operated in more difficult parliamentary circumstances than she did, and when you look at it she got a lot of runs on the board and in my judgment a lot of good runs."