Labor is challenging the Liberals to match its most concrete Canning by-election promise, a police station open round the clock in the crime hot spot of Armadale.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten also threw down the gauntlet to the prime minister, saying he had visited Canning twice in six days compared with Tony Abbott's single trip on Saturday.
He suggested Mr Abbott would prefer to stay away to avoid harming Liberal candidate Andrew Hastie's chances, but would "have to" come.
"You'll see the fingernail marks as he's dragged across the Nullarbor to be here," Mr Shorten told reporters.
"We all know that the last thing that the Liberals in Western Australia want to do is remind people how Mr Abbott is the leader."
WA Opposition Leader Mark McGowan also came out swinging, campaigning not just for Labor's Canning candidate Matt Keogh but also for his own bid for the state's top job at the 2017 state election.
Mr McGowan brushed aside Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan's opposition to 24-hour public access to Armadale's police station, saying: "I disagree with him."
To make the front counter accessible at night would require manning the station, resulting in a reduction of patrols in the area, Mr O'Callaghan wrote in his blog.
But Mr McGowan said it could be a full-service police station at all times, requiring just a bit of extra funding or a reallocation of resources.
"We will have the front desk staffed - that's a commitment," he said.
"It doesn't have to be police officers, it can be civilian staff with access to police officers at the back of the station.
"We already do it at six police stations across the metropolitan area. Armadale will be the seventh and under my leadership there will be more."
Mr McGowan cited the case of a father who took his daughter to the police station after she had been sexually assaulted, but had to drive her elsewhere because it closes at 4pm.
He said the late Don Randall, the Liberal who held the seat for 15 years before his sudden death in July, had - along with Labor member for Armadale Tony Buti - repeatedly asked the state government to keep the station permanently open, but to no avail.
Mr Shorten said the promise was "one of the high jump bars for the Liberal Party".
"They're going to have to match this promise and the sooner they do, the better for everyone," he said.
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