In a nutshell

It’s the final sprint, and yet it feels like we are midway through an interminable cross country course. With less than a week to go until polling day, the swing is not on in any major way, suggesting Saturday’s poll could be a close run thing despite Labor maintaining a 51-49% lead in Monday’s Newspoll.

The final zig-zagging of the country on both sides now begins, with both leaders expected to travel to the west and back again this week, and everywhere in between.

Both leaders began the day in New South Wales, with Scott Morrison talking housing in Penrith, in the seat of Lindsay, selling the government’s first homebuyer deposit scheme – the key theme was “aspiration”.

“Decent, hardworking aspirations of Australians and that the promise of Australia is that they will be able to realise their aspirations,” Morrison said.

Labor has pledged to match the measure.

Shorten used his press conference in Gosford, in the seat of Robertson, to hammer home a warning about ongoing chaos if the Coalition was returned to power.

It was both Morrison’s birthday (51) and the anniversary of Tony Abbott’s 2014 budget (5), allowing Labor to remind voters of the “cuts and chaos” of the five years since the “savage” budget and saying it was time to vote them out.

“Australia has never recovered from the Liberals’ 2014 budget,” Shorten said. “Australians won’t forget the 2014 budget – the Liberals’ broken promises and the destruction it inflicted on services.”

There was a bit of argy bargy over China, with Morrison insisting Australia could maintain good relationships with China and the US amid an escalating trade war.

“You don’t have to pick sides in that,” Morrison said. “You don’t have to walk away from the relationships that you have.

“You stand by your friends and you stand by your customers as well.”

Shorten said he wanted to see “a bit more sophistication” form the prime minister when talking about the relationship.

“I don’t look at China, or Japan, or Korea or Indonesia just as customers,” he said. “I see them as very complex, dynamic societies.”

Elsewhere on the trail

Labor’s Belinda Hassan, who is taking on the Nationals’ George Christensen in the regional Queensland seat of Dawson, was targeted in an arson attack.

The tank of her car was broken into, and a plastic bag was stuffed into the tank and set alight. Hassan has characterised it as a “dangerous attempt at intimidation”.

Nasty.

The big picture

School children chanting “Bi-ill! Bi-ill! Bi-ill!” on the NSW central coast, in shades of Kevin 07 (ended well – at least on election night) and Paul Keating in 1996 (not so well). They can’t vote, but they can certainly boost the spirits of an opposition leader.

The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, with students during a visit to St Joseph’s Catholic college. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Required reading

There is a bipartisan pledge to adopt the first homeowner deposit policy announced by the Coalition on Sunday, so read how it will actually work here. A new poll shows the Greens are in striking distance of securing Josh Frydenberg’s seat of Kooyong, and Morrison’s claim about saving the Great Barrier Reef has been described as “ridiculous”.

Tweet of the day

Morrison managed to extend his birthday by two hours by travelling to Western Australia for the afternoon, where he was presented with a cake in the Labor-held seat of Cowan. It was Bill Shorten’s birthday on Sunday.

What’s next

Scott Morrison landed in Perth on Monday afternoon, but was expected to head back to Adelaide last night where he will start the day on Tuesday. Shorten is in Tasmania where Labor fears the seats of Bass and Braddon are at risk.