Labor leader Bill Shorten started his day in South Australia, visiting the struggling Arrium steelworks in Whyalla with Premier Jay Weatherill.
The steelworks is in voluntary administration after negotiations with its lenders failed.
Administrators say the restructuring and sale of the group should be finalised by the end of the year.
Mr Shorten pledged to support 3,500 jobs by providing $100 million in grants and loans, with the state government contributing $50 million.
He says it will allow Arrium to invest in new plant and equipment, make it more efficient and secure thousands of local jobs.
His pledge was welcomed by Labor Premier Jay Weatherill.
"We've had some wins from the federal Liberal Party but at the moment the balance is very much in favour of federal Labor. My job at the end of the day - of course I want to see Bill succeed and my party succeed - but my job at the end of the day is to promote South Australia's interests. So we've put both of these sets of propositions to both major parties and that's my job. We tried to broker a bipartisan agreement on steel. Bill's stepped up to the plate and we do invite the prime minister to join him."
However, the Coalition refused to be dragged into the debate.
Malcolm Turnbull says Arrium is in trouble in large part because of mismanagement.
"What Mr Shorten has announced is a very vague offer of $100 million of support, unspecified. Is he proposing to subsidise a sale to a foreign buyer? It's hard to tell. It shows very little understanding of the charges that Arrium actually faces and very little connection with ensuring that the jobs of the 1,500 workers in the steel business and the similar number in the iron ore business are preserved. So it's a very characteristically unbusiness-like and highly political announcement from Mr Shorten."
Other pledges made in campaigning were $50.5 million dollars by the Coalition if re-elected, to accelerate the digitisation of government services.
Australians living in areas of disadvantage and low employment will be placed into local jobs under a $68 million Labor promise targeting 20 areas with high unemployment.
Labor has also pledged $12 million over four years to the National Library of Australia for it to resume adding new content to its online database.
Questions also continued about the Liberal Party-owned software firm, Parakeelia.
The firm provides voter monitoring software to coalition M-Ps, for which they can pay $2,500 a year out of taxpayer-funded allowances.
Parakeelia is also the Party's second-biggest donor, providing a million dollars.
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann says the Party hasn't done anything wrong.
"Parakeelia, like any company, has to comply with all relevant laws. My advice is they do comply with all relevant laws and respond to any relevant inquiries by relevant authorities in a timely fashion and that is what I would expect them to do from here on in. I am very confident that that is that they will continue to do from here on in, indeed. This support to access software is available to all members and senators on the same basis."
Labor MPs have access to similar databases of voters and the issues they raise, provided by the software firm Magenta Linas.
But Mr Shorten says there's a key difference: Labor doesn't own Magenta Linas.
He's asked the Auditor General to investigate.
"The Liberal Party pays Parakeelia. The Liberal Party owns Parakeelia. The Liberal Party pays Parakeelia, a company they own, with taxpayer funds. The other point here is that we pay Magenta Linus and we don't own the business. We are not recycling, like a Liberal Party washing machine, taxpayer funds into the bottom line of the profits of the Liberal Party."
Elsewhere, former prime minister Tony Abbott made a cameo appearance on the campaign trail.
The Australian Financial Review is reporting speculation that Malcolm Turnbull is under internal party pressure to offer Mr Abbott a ministerial job if the Coalition wins next month's election.
But Mr Abbott has told radio 3AW he's focused on serving his electorate in New South Wales.
"I'm very happy to be the candidate for Warringah and I'm expecting to be more than busy in the next parliament as the member for Warringah should the people return me."
Malcolm Turnbull also dismissed the reports.
"The ministry I'm taking to the election will be the ministry after the election if the Australian people choose to return my government to office."
And Bob Katter faced questions over the timing of his new campaign ad depicting him as a cowboy shooting two men dead.
The ad was released just days after 50 people were shot dead at a nightclub in Orlando, in the United States.
Asked on the Seven Network about the timing, Mr Katter says he doesn't watch the news.
Koch: "You didn't know there was a shooting in Orlando?"
Katter: "I repeat to you that I get in every night at midnight and with all due respect I watch a movie if I switch the television on, not that I do."
Koch: "Oh, Bob, c'mon. C'mon."
Katter: "I do not read the newspapers. I haven't read the newspapers in ages."
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