A day before Australia went to the polls, prime minister Malcolm Turnbull stood on a wooden palette and talked up his "jobs and growth" plan at a Sydney robotics factory.



Turnbull was trying in earnest to bring the conversation back to the economy and shake off questions over the controversial marriage equality plebiscite, which threatened to derail his central message in the final week of the campaign.

A day earlier Turnbull was asked twice about the plebiscite during his final address at the National Press Club. The day before that he was peppered with seven gay marriage questions in a row during a testy campaign doorstop in the tiny room of a Chinese Yum Cha restaurant.