Scott Morrison expect to call Federal election within days

The Prime Minister says the election will be called “soon enough”. but insiders believe the official campaign may begin this weekend.

Sunday is looming as the most likely day for Scott Morrison to officially kickstart the federal election campaign.

The Prime Minister has ruled out calling the election on Thursday, and Sunday is the last day he can visit the Governor-General to fit in the required 33-day campaign before May 14.

May 21 is the latest possible election date, although political insiders told the Herald Sun that Mr Morrison was unlikely to return to Canberra for next week’s parliamentary sitting period before he sent Australia to the polls.

Speaking on Wednesday in Sydney, Mr Morrison said the election would be “called soon enough”.

Asked whether he would order a longer campaign for a May 21 election because the government needed more time to improve its chances, he said he had always been committed to serving a full term.

“I said we’d run for three years and that’s what we’re doing,” Mr Morrison said.

“You get elected to do a job and that’s what we’re doing.”

Labor campaign spokesman Jason Clare said Mr Morrison had “no more excuses for delaying calling the election”.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to call the election on Sunday. Picture: Jeremy Piper

“It’s time to stop the delays, stop wasting time and stop wasting taxpayers’ money,” he said.

“Every single day that Scott Morrison delays calling the election, he’s wasting taxpayers’ money on TV ads to save his own political skin. Every day he’s spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of your money to try to save himself and his government.”

It came as Mr Morrison launched an attack on opposition treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers, after he revealed a Labor government would not maintain the government’s tax speed limit which means tax revenue must remain below 23.9 per cent of the size of the economy.

Mr Morrison said it was “an incredibly important safeguard”.

“It is a guardrail to ensure that taxes do not get out of control in Australia,” he said.

“Jim Chalmers wants to let taxes rip, he wants a no-limits tax policy ... Why would you want to get rid of a tax cap if you didn’t want to increase taxes?”

Dr Chalmers said Mr Morrison was trying to “unleash scare campaigns based on lies”.

Anthony Albanese spent Wednesday campaigning in Western Australia with Premier Mark McGowan, where he faced questions about when Labor planned to deliver on its promise to put nurses in aged care homes around the clock.

“What we’re going to do is put our shoulder to the wheel,” the Labor leader said, adding that it was “certainly our objective” to enforce the requirement in nursing homes within a year.

Their press conference was awkwardly gatecrashed by a local resident who announced he wanted to ask a “tough question” of Mr Albanese, who said he would only be taking questions from the press pack.

Originally published as Scott Morrison expect to call Federal election within days