Australian voters can expect one of the most negative election campaigns in recent memory.
Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten offered a taste of what's to come as they gave a broadbrush outline of their campaigns on Sunday.
The Labor leader was first off the blocks ahead of the prime minister driving to Yarralumla on a grey, rainy Mother's Day to seek a July 2 poll.
"They are definitely not united and they are pursuing a policy to reward big tax cuts to major corporations," Shorten said of the coalition.
"They will provide tax cuts to people who earn $1 million a year and at the same time, a working parent with teenage kids loses family payments."
At his Canberra media conference launching the election, Turnbull was initially upbeat about the coalition's economic plan but dialled up the rhetoric when it came to Labor.
"Look at the Labor Party - everything they are doing ... is absolutely calculated to stop our economic progress in its tracks," he said.
The previous Labor government was a "failed experiment" and Shorten was at the heart of it.
"After three years they have learnt nothing from the failure of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years in which Mr Shorten was a leading player."
Former Queensland premier Peter Beattie believes there's a wealth of material for both parties to go heavily negative.
"I think it's going to be the most negative campaign we've seen in a long time," the veteran Labor campaign manager said.
Shorten's image as standing up for battlers - reinforced by his former role as an Australian Workers Union boss - will play well in contrast to Turnbull's pro-business profile.
However, the coalition will seek to turn this into a negative, emphasising evidence presented during Shorten's appearance at the unions royal commission and Labor's reluctance to support the building industry watchdog, which was the trigger for this double-dissolution election.
Labor will seek to make Turnbull's emphasis on innovation and turbo-charging business a negative by calling it trickle-down economics and pointing out that cutting education funding is not a smart way to improve the economy.
It all makes for a gruelling eight weeks.
