00:00Liberal leader Peter Dutton has come here to St Mary's Cathedral in the heart of Sydney to pay his respects to the late Pope Francis.
00:09We of course saw Prime Minister Anthony Albanese do a similar thing and attend a church service this morning to equally pay his respects.
00:17Now Mr Dutton today announced a pause in campaigning so there would be less of a focus on politicking as he said
00:25and more of a focus on paying respect and reflecting on the contributions of Point Francis.
00:32I don't think it's a day for overt politicking at all. I think the day is best spent reflecting and obviously pre-polling etc opens today and all of that will continue on
00:44but I don't think there's a place for the body blows of politics today. I think it's a very different day from that.
00:53Today of course was supposed to look very different even though the third leaders debate in this election campaign is still going ahead tonight on Channel 9.
01:02It was supposed to look very different.
01:04Mr Dutton did begin the day in Orange, the regional New South Wales town that lies within the electorate of Calair.
01:11That is a particularly interesting electorate. He was supposed to be standing alongside his Nationals counterpart David Littleproud.
01:17That seat is currently held by Independent Andrew Gee, a former Nationals MP who changed and sat on the crossbench partway through the term,
01:26well early on in the term really, when the Nationals decided to oppose the Indigenous voice to Parliament.
01:32It's also a key electorate because it's one of the electorates where under a coalition government a nuclear power plant would be built.
01:40But as we've seen so many times during the campaign, it's these big international moments that change the course of the day, the course of questioning and really the campaigning.
01:50We are now heading towards the pointy end of this campaign, less than two weeks away and early voting of course starting today as well.
02:00So really being out and about and criss-crossing the country is particularly important for the leaders and the coalition of course being behind in the polls.
02:09Mr Dutton has said though that the polls aren't necessarily to be believed.
02:14He says the internal polling from the Liberal Party shows that they do have a stronger standing with the public.
02:21But nonetheless to keep moving across the country is key for them over the next couple of weeks to keep selling their policies to the Australian people.
