The seats getting most attention

WHERE THE PARTIES ARE MAKING A BIG EFFORT

MACARTHUR (Liberal NSW): Both Turnbull and Shorten have twice visited this south-western Sydney seat the Liberals hope to retain despite boundary changes reducing MP Russell Matheson's margin from the 2013 election. Both leaders have promised $50 million to upgrade a key commuter road.

CORANGAMITE (Liberal VIC): Turnbull is there on Tuesday, as was Shorten last week. Labor has hopes of winning back this Geelong-Great Ocean Road seat from the Liberals, but it might come down to the personal appeal of first-term MP Sarah Henderson. The region has benefited from government largesse including establishing the headquarters of the national disability insurance scheme. Labor believes it can get the four per cent swing needed to win back the seat.

EDEN-MONARO (Liberal NSW): Turnbull, together with popular NSW Premier Mike Baird, campaigned there on Monday. Regarded as the country's ultimate bellwether seat. The southern NSW regional seat has been held by the winning side in every election since 1972. Mutterings over the performance of Liberal MP Peter Hendy could end its long-run status as a government seat.

SOLOMON (Country-Liberal Party NT): Campaigning tumbled to absurd levels last week when both parties tried to gazump each other over a $15 million PET scanner for Darwin's major hospital. Liberal Natasha Griggs won it for the coalition in 2010, but only marginally improved her position in 2013 to win by 1500 votes.

LINDSAY (Liberal NSW): Fiona Scott was thrust into the limelight during the 2013 campaign when Tony Abbott reckoned out loud she had a bit of sex appeal. Turnbull preferred to talk about her academic and business attributes during a visit to this western-Sydney seat. First-termers, like Scott, generally have a good record of defying a national swing against their party.

DOBELL (notionally Labor NSW): Both leaders campaigned here last week. A redraw of the electoral boundaries since the 2013 election gives Labor a very slim head-start in this Central Coast seat. Made infamous by the antics of disgraced Labor MP Craig Thomson while he was head of the Health Services Union. Unsurprisingly, Karen McNamara garnered a 5.75 per cent swing three years ago to pick it up for the Liberals.

REID (Liberal NSW): Shorten has twice visited Reid in Sydney's inner west. Businessman Craig Laundy, who won the seat from Labor in 2013, is well-respected, even by Labor MPs in neighbouring seats, as a moderate and supporter of ethnic diversity.

DUNKLEY (Liberal VIC): Changing demographics, especially in the commuter suburb of Frankston, and the retirement of popular local MP Bruce Billson have Liberal strategists a little nervous about the government's hold on this Mornington Peninsula seat. It went down to the wire in 2010 before Billson garnered a 4.5 per swing in 2013.

HERBERT (Liberal QLD): Visited by both leaders. The Townsville seat, on paper, looks reasonably safe for the coalition. However, the closure of Clive Palmer's Queensland Nickel refinery and the loss of hundreds of jobs has rocked the local community.