WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has spoken out in support of Anthony Albanese, as the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader made their last-ditch bids to voters.

Assange, who spent more than five years in a London prison after being charged with espionage, returned to Australia last year after striking a plea deal with the US Justice Department. 

He has largely been quiet since then, but provided a statement to Nine Newspapers praising the Prime Minister’s role in lobbying for his release. 

 “The truth is, in what became an impressive field of advocates, Albo did more to secure my freedom than any other politician or public figure, even more than the late Pope, whose support was both moving and significant,” said Assange, who attended Pope Francis’s funeral last week.

He said the Prime Minister had also stood up for other Australians “detained in difficult circumstances”.

“Does this mean Albo will put Australian interests first and skilfully navigate tensions between the US, EU, and China? I can’t say for sure. But I do know this: He can. Albo did right by me…”

Public polling has Labor in the driver’s seat to form government, with an outside shot at retaining majority.

But the Prime Minister insists the Government isn’t getting ahead of itself, after being scarred by an upset defeat to Scott Morrison in 2019.

“I don’t take the Australian people for granted. I’m working my guts out to ensure there’s a majority government,” Albanese told reporters in Brisbane on Friday.

With 76 seats needed to form an outright majority, the major parties’ tallies have shifted since the last election because of defections to the cross bench and seat redistributions. Labor holds 78 seats and the coalition 57.

Despite facing dire polling and a surge in early voting, the Opposition Leader remained confident the Coalition could still pick up seats.

Dutton said he expected “big surprises” on election night. The election had the hallmarks of 2019, where polling was different to the outcome, he said, claiming candidates had been receiving “pretty remarkable” feedback on pre-poll booths. 

Pies and petrol

Albanese began the final day of campaigning by returning to  Dutton’s Brisbane-based electorate of Dickson in Queensland – the first place he went after calling the election on March 28. 

Asked if he was trying to “play mind games”, the Prime Minister said he was “trying to win a seat”, before expanding on the differences between himself and his opponent.

“We’re very different people,” he told reporters in Brisbane, alongside Labor’s Dickson candidate Ali France.

“Hope versus fear, optimism versus talking Australia down. My opponent is fearful of the present and petrified of the future.”

Dutton holds the north suburban seat on a 1.7 per cent margin. Throughout the campaign, Albanese has said Labor could take the most marginal seat in Queensland from the Coalition Leader.

Peter Dutton at the produce market in Pooraka, Adelaide. Photo: AAP

As well as Queensland, Albanese hit Victoria and Tasmania on Friday, with Liberal supporters crashing the party at a Devonport bakery famous for scallop pies.

The volunteers pulled up with anti-Labor posters and tried to take the spotlight. Rapping on their corflutes, they claimed Albanese was telling “absolute lies” as he sat at the Devonport Banjo’s Bakery Cafe with a coffee and some pastries and spoke to Labor volunteer Syed Mahsein, who turned 70 on Friday.

Dutton started his day in South Australia, where the Coalition is looking to win Boothby and sandbag Sturt, before heading to Western Australia to target key seats lost in 2022.

Dutton stood alongside Tangney candidate Howard Ong at a 4WD store in Perth, where he again championed his policies to bring down petrol prices. Labor won the seat with a 2.8 per cent margin in 2022, following a 12 per cent swing away from the Liberals.

“It’s a significant decision for people to make because this is a sliding-doors moment,” Dutton said in Perth.

“I have been coming to WA for 25 years and to watch it at different periods where it’s been down … but when it’s booming, when it’s racing, it is an exciting place, and it will be racing under a government that I lead.”