Anthony Albanese visited one of Labor's most marginal seats on Monday as the latest Newspoll showed Labor's primary vote was at its highest point in a year.
It was the latest in a series of surveys that have showed the government well ahead on a two-party preferred basis and within reach of being returned with a majority.
But Mr Albanese pointed to the lessons learned during Labor's losing 2019 campaign, when it was tipped to win only to be beaten by the coalition on polling day.
"(In) 2019 the bookies paid out and guess what? That didn't occur, that was a very unwise thing to do," he told reporters on the NSW south coast on Monday.
"There's no complacency from my camp.
"This election is certainly up for grabs."
Mr Albanese was in the seat of Gilmore, held by Labor on a 0.2 per cent margin, when journalists grilled him on his government's lack of action on gambling advertising ahead of the May 3 election.
A landmark gambling harm inquiry chaired by late-Labor MP Peta Murphy suggested a total advertising phase-out, but almost two years later, the government has not acted on this key recommendation.
The prime minister acknowledged there was "more to do" but claimed his government had done more to tackle problem gambling than any previous administration.
Meanwhile, the opposition has been under pressure to reveal its full policy costings while major announcements, such as defence spending, remain up its sleeve.
It announced a $750 million package to improve community safety by tightening laws and borders while also establishing a pilot scheme that would reveal the identities of registered sex offenders to parents and guardians.
Mr Albanese said the government already set up a National Child Offender System that allows police in each state and territory to share information about offenders, although its data is not publicly available.
With early voting starting on Tuesday, the Australian Electoral Commission is preparing to deliver what it calls Australia's largest peacetime logistical event with more than 18 million people registered to vote and 60 million ballot papers being printed.
The Newspoll, published in the Australian, showed a lift in Labor's primary vote to 34 per cent, with the coalition on 35 per cent.Â
On a two-party preferred basis, Labor is at 52 per cent, ahead of the coalition's 48 per cent.
Mr Dutton was favoured as preferred leader in areas such as defence and the economy, but Mr Albanese was preferred on the electorate's dominant concern, the cost of living, along with housing and health.
The survey's 1263 respondents also judged the Labor leader to be better able to handle the fall-out of the Trump presidency in the US.
Meanwhile, a Resolve Strategic poll published in Nine newspapers has shown voters are not entirely convinced by Labor's cost-of-living promises with 47 per cent saying it is a stumbling block to voting the prime minister back into power.
But that has not translated into an automatic boost for Peter Dutton with 45 per cent of those polled citing his personality as the number one reason they would not elect him to the top political job.
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