Just over a week out from the polls, Malcolm Turnbull has returned to the issue which sparked the election: trade unions.
Having called the double-dissolution poll on the back of two workplace bills failing to pass, the prime minister waded into the politically charged Victorian firefighters dispute on Thursday.
The dispute over a new workplace agreement for the CFA - which involves volunteer and professional firefighters - came to a head two weeks ago when Premier Daniel Andrews sacked the board and his emergency services minister and CFA chief resigned.
The board and minister opposed the new agreement.
Mr Turnbull told a CFA breakfast in Highton the Victorian Labor government was doing the bidding of a "militant union", the United Firefighters.
"It is an assault, not just on the lives and property of Victorians - it's an assault on what is the very best in our Australian spirit," he said to the volunteers.
Mr Turnbull pledged to immediately legislate to change the Fair Work Act to ensure state governments could not subordinate volunteers to unions.
"Believe me, the first item of business will be to protect you," he said.
Labor leader Bill Shorten, campaigning in Adelaide, declined to rule out support for federal laws, opting to wait for the details.
However he said the best option was for the state government to settle the dispute through negotiation with the volunteers and professionals.
"We want to see a more speedy resolution of the dispute and a definite listening to the concerns of volunteers," Mr Shorten said.
Linking the CFA issue to the broader workplace picture, Mr Shorten said Mr Turnbull had a "hang-up about trade union members".
"I don't believe in having the old-fashioned idea of employee versus employer ... I see my job as a leader of Australia is to bring people together," Mr Shorten said.
Support for the volunteers' side of the argument is expected to bolster the coalition's chances of holding a number of regional seats in Victoria at the July 2 poll.
Mr Turnbull visited Geelong to offer the manufacturing port city a $20 million jobs and investment sweetener for local enterprises.
Mr Shorten was in South Australia to release his party's plan for the state, which includes infrastructure projects to boost employment and drive the local economy for the next generation.
The plan includes support for new trams, shipbuilding and steelmaking.
Labor sought to extend its criticism of the coalition's "privatisation" of Medicare to a plan to merge the nation's vaccination registers and contract it out to the private sector.
A government spokeswoman said the contracting out of the registers had begun under Labor in 2008, the merger had Labor's backing and the current main provider of the service was a non-profit body.
