After six weeks of non-stop campaigning, both sides will say they have outlined clear, distinctive cases for election, and neither will admit they have instead sold themselves in an uninspiring, even fearful manner.

But regardless, a government will be formed by the Liberal-National Coalition or Labor. The prime ministership will go to Scott Morrison or Anthony Albanese. And so the choice becomes which of these alternatives presents the best future for Australia.

Guiding this newspaper's position has been the performance of the parties on issues that matter to Australians. Earlier this year we surveyed readers across our newspaper network to ask what matters most to them.

We looked to these priority areas to score the parties' policies and performance during the campaign. That scorecard is published in today's edition.

Among the issues of major concern were climate action, an integrity commission, health services and, of course, leadership. While the scorecard is not glowing for either party in some key areas, one rises above the other.

And of special concern to the ACT, one party treats with respect the issue of territory rights - which goes to the basic equality of citizenship in this country - while the other treats it with outright contempt.

Beyond even these criteria, voters should also assess the merits of the two teams and who would occupy cabinet positions. Labor has been out of power for almost a decade. Scars of its internecine warfare of the Rudd/Gillard years clearly remain, but in opposition it has developed a more than competent leadership team.

Behind (and not very far behind, to be frank) Anthony Albanese stand talented performers in just about every major portfolio area. There are now a number of women and men in the Labor ranks who present as worthy future leaders. While Mr Albanese, who faces a very steep learning curve at a crucial time in history, may have stumbled more times in this campaign than he has soared, if he can marshall this team he has the makings of a very strong cabinet.

Nine years in government, marked by its own savage internal feuding and pursuits of culture-war victories, have not been so kind to the Coalition.

The short Abbott premiership demonstrated that a wrecking-ball opposition leader does not make for a good leader of the nation. The Turnbull years showed that a prime minister paralysed by internal conflict and hostage to the whims of the extremes of his party cannot achieve anything of great note.

Circumstances, in the form of a pandemic, have meant that Scott Morrison will be seen as a consequential prime minister in spite of himself.

He has achievements to his name, notably the nation's economic survival through the worst of the COVID-19 crisis, and his decisive calls to help protect us in those critical early months. He has held firm on Chinese aggression, and dealt us into a hugely significant alliance with the UK and the US.

But his overall record is one blotted by his own mistakes, his superficiality, his self-confessed "bulldozer" aggression and ultimately his depleted reserves of trust. His front bench looks every bit the tired, hollowed out and tainted product of an uninspiring nine years of government.

The calls for a national integrity body are so loud and persistent right now as to sound like a direct rebuke to some of the people sitting on Scott Morrison's side of the chamber.

And so, on balance of performance, promises and talent, Labor deserves to return to government. And, should the chambers be occupied by as many independents as the polls predict, presents as the better party to broker compromise in these conditions.

Consensus builders, not bulldozers, will be needed in the next Australian Parliament.