Hello and welcome to Day 20! We are almost at the three week mark of this campaign, and the easter break is about to begin, which means campaigning will continue, but in a more muted way until Tuesday.

Tuesday is also when early voting begins and the past tells us there are plenty of people already who have made up their minds and just want to get their votes in so they can switch off for the rest of the campaign.

So today is the last day the leaders have to make an impression on some people and either win that first vote, or jump ahead in the preference flow of their opponent.

It follows last night second leaders’ debate (there is one more during the final week of the campaign) where both Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton made it through without messing up, or delivering any major blows.

Dutton stumbled on questions of foreign policy including overstepping on the Russian request to Indonesia story, (entirely his own fault), as well as struggling on questions regarding Donald Trump, because he was more worried about letting people know he had never met the man (again, a problem of his own creation – he linked himself and campaign to Trump in the first place) than with answering the question asked. There was also the moment where he couldn’t say if climate change was making natural disasters worse. “I’m not a scientist”. OK, but he’s not an expert on a lot of things and that hasn’t stopped him from commenting. Albanese had a few stumbles of his own, but nothing particularly memorable. (When will power prices come down will be the one everyone focuses on)

Both campaigns will be pleased their leaders made it through unscathed. But it also didn’t shift the dial of this election.

We’ll continue to cover the day, with more fact checks and some details about what is being missed. You have Amy Remeikis – it’s at least a four coffee day – with you and the Australia Institute’s brains trust, so if you have some questions – send em through!

Ready?

Let’s get into it.