It's not will-he-won't-he anymore but when? Apparently, the Governor-General is free tomorrow and on Saturday so we may have the starting gun actually go off.
Either way, the Prime Minister is in fighting mode. He needed to be at the Edgeworth Tavern in Newcastle. Nothing to do with the election, of course, but he just popped in, accompanied by a battery of cameras. Waiting for him was an irate pensioner in full finger-jabbing mode.
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"You know another promise you made. You were going to have an integrity commission," the confronter said.
"You better f------g do something. I'm sick of your b------t."
Mr Morrison said he was "keen to understand" the man's issues. He enjoyed meeting people in the community.
But we're still in the phony war - even though the election hasn't actually been called, the election campaigns are underway.
Mr Albanese had his own unscripted moment in Perth. He was there to talk to reporters but a local resident gate-crashed to ask what the intruder said was a "tough question".
Not so tough, it turned out. He asked the leader of the Opposition if he was "up for it".
"I'm absolutely up for it," Mr Albanese said, not so controversially.
Confrontations with the public are difficult for the authorities. They are a glory of democracy, no doubt, but we - and the politicians - live in angry and dangerous times. The police may be having nightmares.
Elsewhere in the pre-election election campaign, getting people to move from the cities to regional Australia was one of the United Australia policies presented by Clive Palmer at his National Press Club address.
"The United Australia party is committed to economic growth in rural areas. Our cities are bursting at the seams. We face heavy congestion, serious housing affordability issues, and mounting costs of living," he said.
It may be a wet election. There seems to be no end to the rain. The Bureau of Meteorology says that April to June are likely to have unusually heavy downpours.
A man was airlifted to safety from a raging, flooded creek near Kangaroo Valley in NSW's Southern Highlands after his car was washed off a causeway.
The reports of atrocities by Russian troops in Ukraine continue to shock. They are prompting Australia to push to suspend Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky used a UN address on Tuesday to call for the expulsion of Russia - one of five permanent members who hold veto powers - from the security council so it cannot block peace resolutions to the war being waged on his country.
THE NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW:
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- Clive Palmer makes pledges for rural Australia and housing at National Press Club address
- What you need to do now to be ready for election day
- ATO set to crack down on farm family trust payments to kids
- Man winched to safety after car washed off flooded causeway
- Autistic children left to fall behind in regional towns
- More Australian kids dying on driveways
- Oz Lotto top prize will be harder to win
- Since when did we start treating real estate agents as rock stars?
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
