Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and opposition leader Tony Abbott crossed paths on the airwaves and at an airport on the last day of the election campaign.
On Friday morning the pair survived a surprise on-air radio hook-up with good humour.
Mr Abbott was being interviewed on Sydney's 2DayFM when the prime minister was patched into the conversation.
"G'day Mr Abbott, how are you Tony? Are you doing well?" Mr Rudd asked.
"Ah, Kevin, I'm fine and look I've got to say good luck and may the best man win," Mr Abbott replied.
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They then crossed paths in the afternoon at Richmond airbase in Sydney as Mr Abbott flew in from Melbourne and Mr Rudd was flying out for Brisbane.
Mr Rudd had spent the morning campaigning on the NSW Central Coast in the marginal seats of Dobell and Robertson.
While at St Edwards College in East Gosford, he continued to brush aside questions about a potential Labor loss and the fate of his own seat.
Asked to assess what he could have changed about his campaign, Mr Rudd declined to get into the "woulda, coulda, shouldas".
A Fairfax Nielson poll released on Friday, conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, has put the coalition ahead 54 to 46 on a two-party preferred basis.
Flanked by Robertson Labor MP Deb O'Neill, Mr Rudd ramped up his last-ditch efforts to convince voters the party's position behind the coalition wasn't as dire as polls are predicting.
"To put it into perspective, the numbers of Australians we are talking about, are about the total population of the central coast," he said.
"That's somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 Australians who we need to get on our side of the pile."
Mr Rudd met a class of Year 10 students at the East Gosford school, who were learning how to make metal clamps.
An elderly man, named Kevin, who declined to give his last name and said he was 705-years-old, was in the classroom and had some kind words about his namesake PM.
"He's a lover, and I love lovers," he said.
There was also a lot of love for Mr Rudd at an afternoon union rally at a Mt Druitt pokies club in the fairly safe seat of Chifley held by Ed Husic.
Mr Rudd drew inspiration from US President Barack Obama in a rousing address.
"The audacity of hope in progressive politics is this - we can build a better Australia," he said.
Mr Rudd also mocked Mr Abbott's fondness for the British TV show Downtown Abbey.
"It represents a conservative view of how (he) wants the world to be," Mr Rudd said.
"Those who serve and those who are served. You know something, that's not our Australia."
