Prime Minister Scott Morrison has ruled out calling the election on Thursday amid speculation of a planned trip to the Governor-General.
The growing possibility of Mr Morrison starting the firing gun comes after
The prime minister said a possible High Court challenge would not impact his decision on when to call the election, but confirmed it would not be in the next 24 hours.
"The election will be called soon enough, and it's going to be a very important election," he told reporters on Wednesday.
He said his actions were to protect female MPs whose preselections were at risk, and denied allegations of bullying and autocratic behaviour, branding it as coming from disgruntled parliamentarians.
"I'm asked all the time, 'Why won't the prime minister do more about getting good women in parliament and stand up for the women in parliament?'. So I stood up for the women in my team," Mr Morrison told the ABC's 7.30 program.
Environment Minister Sussan Ley - one of the three sitting MPs Mr Morrison's intervention saved - defended the prime minister, saying he was willing to listen and focused on getting the right outcomes for Australians.
"The recent political pile on the prime minister could not be further from the reality of the leader I have worked closely with at the Cabinet table, at party discussions or socially," she said in a statement.
Mr Morrison also spared ally Immigration Minister Alex Hawke and backbencher Trent Zimmerman.
Mr Albanese said Scott Morrison made statements that were "demonstrably not true" after he defended going over the top of the party's NSW executive to install his own candidates in the state.
"That is why so many people in the prime minister's own inner circle - people who know him well - have all come to a common view that he cannot be trusted," Mr Albanese said.
While campaigning in a key Perth seat, Mr Albanese said the government was focused on internal politics and not Australians.
"Their entire focus is on themselves," he said.
"They are not dealing with the challenges of how our economy goes forward, they are not dealing with issues like the aged care crisis."
Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, who has been relegated to an unwinnable spot on the party's NSW Senate line-up, rejected the prime minister's claim he was protecting women.
In a statement to 7.30, she said: "Morrison is simply using the 'gender card' to conflate captain's picks to trash democratic processes in NSW."
Senator Fierravanti-Wells last week spoke under parliamentary privilege to condemn Mr Morrison as "not fit to be prime minister", branding him "ruthless".
