As Dutton faces a last-minute policy inquisition, Albanese seems to be on top – and he knows it

An increasingly confident prime minister has bounced back from his campaign missteps while a nervous-looking opposition leader is running out of time to make a comeback

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Two weeks until the 3 May election day and Anthony Albanese is cracking jokes about Star Wars.

Every profile and sketch of the prime minister during this campaign - which is now past its halfway - speaks of the confidence and even swagger Albanese projects as he travels the country. It is one of the starkest differences to his 2022 campaign, which was dominated by missteps: forgetting key economic figures, then his untimely Covid diagnosis and images of being chased out of a press conference by journalists.