Malcolm Turnbull says the coalition would have "resoundingly" lost the election if he hadn't ousted Tony Abbott as Liberal leader.
And Bill Shorten insists he's no longer a faction man but admits removing Kevin Rudd as Labor leader was not the right thing to do.
Both leaders made the admissions in a special election episode of ABC's Four Corners program in which they concede to past mistakes and lessons learnt in political life.
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Mr Turnbull is confident he made the right decision in challenging Mr Abbott for the leadership last September.
"I think if there had not been a change of leadership then we would've lost the election very resoundingly," the prime minister said.
However, he is hesitant in offering his predecessor a frontbench position if the coalition wins on Saturday.
Cabinet would remain the same after the election, he said.
"I have a very good cabinet. It has only been recently reshuffled."
Mr Shorten faced a grilling over his part in the overthrow of two prime ministers, including Mr Rudd.
"In hindsight it wasn't the right way to go," he said.
But he says he's no longer a faction man and has realised the importance of a unified party and putting rampant factionalism and personality politics in the back seat.
"When you become the leader and you go for a thousand days you realise that some of the arguments which you think are important are just not important as getting your policies together and being united."
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Mr Turnbull says he's still the same person as he was as opposition leader in 2009 but has learnt his lesson from the Godwin Grech affair.
"I learnt that you should ... perhaps be less rash and less trusting of things that appear, things are not always as what they appear to be."
