Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton have suspended campaign events on Tuesday morning and attended church services to reflect on the life of Pope Francis.
The prime minister attended mass at St Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne early on Tuesday morning to mourn the pontiff.
He attended the same church the night before to pay his respects in private after news of the Pope's death broke.
Mr Dutton is due to attend a commemoration service after starting the day in Orange, in the must-win seat of Calare.
"I don't think it's a day for overt politicking at all, I think the day is best spent reflecting," he told ABC TV on Tuesday.
"Obviously pre-polling opens today and all of that will continue on but I don't think there's a place for the sort of body blows of politics today."
The coalition is running out of time to unveil and sell their major policies in the run up to May 3, with their defence spend announcement and its full suite of budget savings measures still in the bag as Australians start to vote.
It's sparked warnings about parties not having enough time to sell their messages if they keep policies up their sleeves for too long.
The Liberals are preparing a massive advertising blitz in the final week and a half of the campaign.
Labor has seized on the coalition not balancing its spending with enough cost-saving measures as it launches attacks about "secret cuts" from the opposition.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said the government's key election policies about funding Medicare and delivering tax cuts were put in the field early to inform voters.
"We accept that people aren't hanging on every word that politicians say on a day-to-day basis and that you do need time to talk about what your plans are," she told ABC radio.
"Obviously, there's 11 days to go, so we'll have further things to say throughout those 11 days, but we also accept that people are taking up the opportunity to vote early and campaigns need to adjust to that."
University of Tasmania public policy associate professor Kate Crowley agreed, telling AAP "if they've got something that they want to have a maximum impact, they can't reveal it at the last minute the way they used to".
Mr Albanese called it "extraordinary arrogance" for the opposition leader not to tell Australians where all the flagged cuts will come from until after the election.
Mr Dutton has said he needs the resources of government to determine areas of waste to be targeted as he pledges to reduce the public service by 40,000 and slash immigration numbers.
Both major parties have promised to release the full costing of their policies before the election date.
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