Even before a vote is counted, Bill Shorten is fending off talk his days as Labor leader are numbered.
Varying benchmarks - from producing a hung parliament to winning at least 10 seats from the coalition - have been floated by party insiders as pre-requisites for retaining the leadership.
For his part, Mr Shorten is having none of it especially as he unleashes a media blitz with two campaigning days to go.
"It's no surprise that in the last couple of days the kitchen sink gets thrown at you in order to discourage people from voting for you," Mr Shorten told Alan Jones on radio 2GB on Thursday.
Jones and an another unlikely sympathiser - Tony Abbott's former chief of staff Peta Credlin - have praised Mr Shorten's performance as opposition leader.
"If Labor was smart I think they would reward Bill for having done well over the last seven or eight months," Credlin said in her role as Sky News commentator.
There are reports influential NSW senator Sam Dastyari, from the Right faction, has openly discussed switching his support to Anthony Albanese after the election.
A Labor loss on Saturday automatically results in a leadership spill.
Mr Albanese ran for the leadership after Labor's 2013 election loss, decisively winning the rank-and-file ballot but stymied by a weighted vote of MPs and senators.
Two Labor figures have told Sydney's Daily Telegraph Senator Dastyari openly canvassed them over the idea of switching their support to Mr Albanese, rather than back shadow treasurer Chris Bowen.
The senator vehemently denies that.
"It would be impossible to find a bigger Bill Shorten supporter in the country than me right now," he said.
Mr Shorten insists the Labor team is united.
"We have probably exceeded the expectations of the people who wrote us off but we are still going with every inch of energy right down to the wire," he told reporters in Brisbane.
Labor was in a competitive position for Saturday's poll because of his entire team, by which he'd been well served.
"There is not a single member of my team I would swap."
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