Katina Curtis: When should you choose? Here is the issue the Prime Minister will consider

Christmas lights are twinkling in the café, the Senate is sitting late into the night, and tempers are fraying: It must be the last session week of the year.

With an election looming in the not-too-distant future, the end-of-year pantomimes are stepping up a few notches.

The constant topic of every debate is speculation about when the election will take place.

March or May. A surprising quick start to February. Definitely mid-April.

The chatter in the corridors and courtyards is determined by a highly speculative but strange calculation.

Announcement dates, election dates, pre-poll periods, legal restrictions, school holidays, Reserve Bank meetings, parliamentary schedule and Western Australian egos all come into play.

Liberal MP Sussan Ley told colleagues this week that Anthony Albanese would travel to Yarralumla on Australia Day and ask the Governor-General to call an election before Parliament is scheduled to return.

Since Malcolm Turnbull’s mammoth eight-week campaign in 2016, which so weakened the party’s finances that the then prime minister had to tip in $1.75 million of his own money, leaders have stuck to the five-week minimum.

Assuming Albanes follows suit, Ley’s scenario gives a March 1 election date.

Sending voters to the polls on March 1, 8, or 15 confuses the Federal campaign with the State campaign due to overlapping pre-election periods.

Aside from the logistical nightmare of two election commissions, the increase in the number of early voters these days carries the risk that many will simply vote in one election and not the other, thinking they are doing their civic duty.

WA Labor people at all levels warned Albanese that causing the State election to change would royally anger the West Australians whose support he sorely needed.

However, the appeal of these dates stems from the fact that Parliament was not brought back at the beginning of February. This will please Labor strategists who do not think the party will win when the debate is messy and out of the government’s control.

The same can be said for the surprise elections in February, which will be the earliest elections of the year for any election day since Federation.

If you don’t mind sitting out a few more weeks to get your business done but want to avoid unpredictable questioning from public officials, a March 22 or 29 vote date will avoid a week’s worth of Senate estimates.

The start of the campaign will overlap with WA but there will be different voting periods.

19 April was definitely canceled because it was Easter, and 26 April was probably canceled because of Anzac Day; It would also involve holding the election a day before the planned Budget, leading to accusations that scrutiny of the state of the economy was being avoided.

Albanese has repeatedly stated publicly that he wants a full term with a budget in March and an election in May.

Using Scott Morrison’s model of moving from a budget sale straight into an election campaign, treating bids by May 3, 10 or 17 at face value.

It had mixed results for Morrison.

A decisive date could be April 12: call an election after another Labor victory in Western Australia, scrap a Budget that will only be riddled with deficits and stingy spending, and avoid the campaign dead spots of Easter and Anzac Day.

But as minister Chris Bowen said on Wednesday morning, only the Prime Minister knows when the election will be and will tell the Governor General first. Or second only to the campaign director.

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