Scott Morrison calls a May 18 election that will be fought on the Coalition's ...

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced the date of the next federal election.

Mr Morrison announced on Thursday the election will be held on May 18, after meeting with Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove to dissolve the Parliament.

'Earlier this morning, I visited the Governor-General here in Canberra and he accepted my advice for an election to be held on 18 May,' Mr Morrison said.

The conservative coalition is seeking a third three-year term. But Mr Morrison is the third Prime Minister to lead a divided government in that time and only took the helm in late August.

Opinion polls suggest his reign will become one of the shortest in the 118-year history of Australian Prime Ministers on election day.

The polls suggest center-left opposition leader Bill Shorten will become the eighth Prime Minister since the country plunged into an extraordinary period of political instability in 2007.

In announcing the date of the election, Mr Morrison said Australia was the 'best country in the world'.

'But to secure your future, the road ahead depends on a strong economy. And that's why there is so much at stake at at this election,' he said.

'It's a choice between a government that I lead and the alternative of a Labor government led by Bill Shorten.

'I believe in a fair go for those who have a go.'

Mr Morrison said voters could be assured he would see out his term as Prime Minister should he be elected despite the leadership spill that saw him replace Malcolm Turnbull last year.

'We changed the rules in the Liberal party... those rules say that at the next election on May 18, if the Liberal-National Government is returned, if I'm re-elected as Prime Minister, then I will serve as Prime Minister because the rules have been changed to prevent the things that happened in the past,' he said.

The election pits Shorten, a former labor union leader who has presented himself as the alternative prime minister for the past six years, and Morrison, a leader who the Australian public is still getting to know.

Australians face the starkest policy choice in a generation with an election to be held in just five weeks. 

Mr Shorten is odds-on favourite to be Australia's next prime minister, despite the government campaigning strongly against his renewable energy and negative gearing policies to help younger people afford a home. 

Betting agency Sportsbet is predicting the biggest federal Labor majority in 76 years, in an election where four Liberal ministers would lose their seat. 

More than 16.2million voters are heading to the polls in five weeks in an election which could see a government voted out of office for only the eighth time since World War II. 

Mr Morrison arrived at Government House in Canberra on Thursday morning to speak to Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove about dissolving Parliament.

Mr Shorten told Daily Mail Australia last month his policy agenda was the most ambitious since Gough Whitlam won the 1972 election by campaigning on the theme, 'It's Time.'

His Labor Party is vowing to have Australia source 50 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030.

Labor also wants half of all vehicles sold in Australia within 11 years to be electric or hybrid cars, a very dramatic increase from the 0.2 per cent market share they have now.

The Opposition also wants to slash carbon emissions by 45 per cent by 2030.

Labor's plan is much more ambitious than the Coalition's goal of a 28 per cent reduction in carbon pollution over the same time frame. 

The Opposition is also vowing to scrap negative gearing tax breaks for future purchases of existing property, so fewer investors are competing with younger Australians wanting to buy their first home.

Labor has promised to stop wealthy retirees, who don't pay income tax, from getting tax refunds for when they receive share dividends.

The Opposition says its winding back of negative gearing and its tax crackdowns on shareholders will save $80billion over the next decade.

The government, which lacks a parliamentary majority, is opposed to both of these policies and has been campaigning fiercely for the Baby Boomer vote. 

Mr Morrison, who became PM in August, will call a May election, days after his Treasurer Josh Frydenberg delivered a Budget giving annual tax cuts of up to $1,080 for 10 million Australian workers earning up to $126,000 a year.

Mr Shorten has vowed to match the tax cuts and give even more to lower income earners on less than $40,000 a year, who were promised $255 a year in the Budget.

His Budget-reply speech also offered a $2.3 billion policy whereby the Commonwealth would pay the medical bills of cancer sufferers - five years after the Opposition Leader's mother Ann died of breast cancer. 

The Liberal-National party Coalition has last week unveiled the first Budget surplus in 12 years - something a federal Labor government hasn't delivered since 1989 when Bob Hawke was prime minister.

The government, however, is plagued with disunity, having disposed Tony Abbott in September 2015 before right-wing forces brought down his prime ministerial successor Malcolm Turnbull in August 2018. 

Both major parties are committed to sending asylum seekers to offshore processing centres at Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.

Labor, however, is open about them being allowed to move to New Zealand, following an offer from Kiwi Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

When Labor was last in government former prime minister Kevin Rudd in 2008 dismantled the Pacific solution.

This led to a surge in boat arrivals, rising from just three in the 2007-08 financial year, to 117 in 2009-10.

Or put another way, the number of asylum seekers surged from 25 to 5,327, figures from a Parliament House research paper showed.

The policy change also coincided with the deaths of 48 people, mainly asylum seekers from Iran and Iraq, as their boat sunk and washed on to cliffs at Christmas Island in December 2010.