Peter Dutton is relying on "quiet Australians" to get him over the line as a former political insider says protest votes could offer him a path to The Lodge.
The opposition is seeking to defy a campaign-trail poll slump that has delivered Labor a significant lead, although the coalition maintains its internal numbers are more optimistic than the public ones.
Mr Dutton will hit more than two dozen seats in the final week of campaigning ahead of Saturday's poll.
He said internal polling was positive and that gave him great confidence for the election result.
"(That) really reflects, frankly, the mood that the marginal seat members are reporting back to me at the pre-polling," he told Brisbane radio station 4BC on Tuesday.
"There's a lot of quiet Australians ... particularly people in suburbs, who believe that the government hasn't delivered for them.
"I think there are a few surprises coming and there's no doubt in my mind that we can win this election."
The term "quiet Australians" was famously used by former Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison after his unexpected victory in 2019, which defied polls that consistently predicted a Labor victory.
Mr Morrison's former media chief Andrew Carswell said he hadn't written off the coalition, which needs to gain more than 20 seats to govern in majority.
The path to victory was narrow but still possible with public polling out of step with what was happening on the ground, the consultant told AAP.
"While Labor is very much the short odds to be in minority government, it will be closer than people think," he said.
A Roy Morgan poll showed Labor remained on track to form a majority government, leading 53 to 47 per cent on a two-party preferred basis despite a slight improvement in the coalition's position.
Support from right-wing minor parties could still help the coalition get over the line despite majority government being "awfully difficult", Mr Carswell said.Â
"The preferences that come from One Nation, Trumpet of Patriots and other centre-right minor parties to the coalition is dramatically higher than in 2022," he said.
The latest YouGov poll showed One Nation had a 10.5 per cent primary vote, more than double its 2022 primary.
Mr Carswell added Victoria was also looking strong for the coalition, particularly in outer-suburban seats where cost-of-living pressures were hitting hardest.
But Labor sources say the party has mitigated some of the brand damage from an unpopular state government and is tracking better that it was just weeks ago.
Meanwhile, party figures have heaped further pressure on the coalition to release its full policy costings and come clean about how it would pay for nuclear power plants and where it would make cuts to the public service.
The government released its costings on Monday.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said the updated numbers, which show a $1 billion improvement to the budget bottom line compared to previous estimates, meant all Labor's spending commitments had been offset.
"Now it's really time for Peter Dutton and his team to release their costings and their secret cuts that they'll need to make to pay for their nuclear reactors," she told ABC TV.
The opposition is yet to detail where it will cull a foreshadowed 41,000 people from the public service after it said it wouldn't touch frontline services and only target Canberra-based jobs.
About three-fifths of the federal public service is based in the ACT.
Labor says the coalition can't achieve the figure without cutting national security agencies or service staff, such as those helping to reduce waiting times for veterans' pensions.