How do you convince a sceptical public that you're one of them, while going out of your way to avoid any unplanned contact with members of that same public?

Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese have spent the past week zipping around NSW, Victoria and northern Tasmania, campaigning for votes while avoiding voters.

It's by design, of course, part of a carefully curated plan to win them the keys to The Lodge.

But like everything in the high-stakes games of electioneering, there are both risks and rewards.

Done well, stage-managed events can create "good vibe" perceptions like the ones which carried Morrison to victory in 2019, according to Chris Wallace, author of How to Win an Election.

Done poorly, Wallace says, it can be incredibly boring.

Anthony Albanese desperately needed a win.

Earlier that morning, in an industrial patch of Launceston, Tasmania, the Labor leader's campaign had stumbled before it had truly started.

An energetic press pack took its first election scalp when the Labor leader couldn't name the unemployment or RBA cash rate.

He avoided addressing the question the first few times, but attempted to name the figures when he realised the question wasn't going away.

It was a mistake. He didn't know them, and the headlines wrote themselves.

A quick dash to Devonport that afternoon, in the Liberal-held seat of Braddon, would have to go without a hitch.

The set-up was typical.

Albanese would walk down Rooke Street Mall, alongside his Labor colleagues, to meet with some healthcare workers supportive of the party's promises.

But trouble was brewing.

A Devonport worker on her lunchbreak wandered into the huddle of people pointing phones and boom mics at the seated group.

"Look at this for a staged set-up," the worker, who identified herself as Gillian, said.

"The everyday people of Tasmania are on the other side of the table.

"Kimberley Kitching lives and we know who she is in Tasmania, Albanese."

And just like that, Labor's brief flirtation with the unknown - regular, unvetted constituents - showed the danger it could present.

In 2019, Scott Morrison proved himself to be a masterful campaigner, combining energetic photo opportunities with sharp political attacks.

Wallace says a critical factor in Morrison's surprise win over Bill Shorten was his ability to use favourable vision from staged events to re-enforce positive impressions of him.

It's called herd psychology.

"Morrison actively managed his campaign appearances so that positive vision of him interacting enthusiastically with voters, who interacted enthusiastically with him back, were beamed into millions of Australians' homes during the evening news every night," Wallace says.

The Prime Minister isn't the unknown quantity he was in 2019.

He has endured a torrid lead-in to the campaign, headlined by a messy pre-selection saga.

It's therefore harder for Morrison to create the "good vibe perceptions" he did three years ago, Wallace says.

But he's giving it his best shot.

In the campaign's first week, each of Morrison's events - from a canning factory in Culburra Beach to a factory floor in western Sydney - has been curated so as to minimise interactions with the public.

This was on full display at the campaign stop at Wurdi Baierr Stadium outside Geelong, in the marginal Labor-held seat of Corangamite.

All the ingredients were there.

A bunch of exuberant onlookers, in the form of junior basketballers.

A promise of funding: $500,000 for seating and a scoreboard.

Shoot some hoops, signs the kids' Crocs, and Morrison had himself a news lead on every television station and paper.

But while Morrison's team might be able to orchestrate campaign events, they can't control the questions flung at him at the daily press conference.

Morrison sailed through the first three days of the campaign, no doubt buoyed by Albanese's gaffes, before he came under sustained pressure over his most high-profile broken promise - a failure to legislate a national anti-corruption commission.

The line of questioning went to the heart of Labor's campaign: How can Morrison be trusted to deliver if he hasn't delivered?

Under attack, Morrison ducked, dodged and deflected.

Asked about the broken promise, he talked about jobs.

Asked again, he repeated the word "jobs" five times, no doubt hoping that it would be the grab used on the nightly news

So what do the voters think?

At the Longford RSL in the seat of Lyons, Pat Jones - who had made all the scones for the meet and greet with the Prime Minister - agreed a national integrity commission should be established.

"It [should] be darl, yeah of course," she said. "Some people say they get too much."

But Ms Jones, who believed Mr Morrison was doing a good job, acknowledged her vote could be swayed by funding for local projects.

Morrison didn't arrive empty-handed either, promising $45,000 to erect a new cenotaph at the site if the Coalition is elected next month.

Since Devonport, Albanese has stuck to safe ground.

He made a visit to Labor sympathiser Father Bob Maguire, held a rally with health unions and dropped in to a Hunter coal mine.

The chance for public abuse, and a story the press pack can turn to, was reduced. But not eliminated entirely.

Down the dead-end street in South Melbourne where Father Bob's warehouse is situated, members of the public viewed the spectacle.

Joseph Gorczynski and his wife watched on as Mr Albanese, his entourage and the press pack flooded the typically quiet street, only to leave around 15 minutes later.

Waiting to pick up their daughter, it was only by chance they were in this quiet pocket of Melbourne at this time of day.

But neither is particularly excited by the election.

Both the major parties have failed them, they say, and they've considered giving their vote to the United Australia Party.

"I think [Albanese's] lost his way, I don't think much of him at all," Mr Gorczynski said.

"I actually don't think of any politician - I hate them all - and there's nobody else that I can vote for.

"The biggest issue for me and my wife is we want to protect our super funds."

It's not an unfamiliar line.

On the outskirts of the heavily curated press events, there's a sense of bewilderment from onlookers.

A family of Maronite parishioners attending a Good Friday service in Sydney's western suburbs are curious about the tangle of camera crews and journalists waiting outside their local church

"It's for Anthony Albanese," reporters told the mother, who then told her children.

They shrugged as she tried to explain who he was.

"I'm actually not sure what he does either," she admitted.