Happy trails: episode two

Another look at where the campaign has taken the two leaders, and what that might tell us about the state of play.

Click on the image at the bottom of the post and you will see an updated account of the electorates visited by the leaders during the campaign, more or less (there is an element of subjectivity as to what constitutes a visit). One of the salient points to emerge is the rather intensive focus on Tasmania, which remarkably played host to both leaders yesterday. Scott Morrison has spent three days over two visits – exactly equal to his record for Victoria, where he has targeted the five Liberal-held seats on margins of up to 6.4%, but not wasted effort on Dunkley, which is Liberal-held but notionally Labor. Bill Shorten’s visit to the state was likewise his second, but so far he’s spent two days in the state to Morrison’s three.

Western Australia also logged up some points this week, but this is largely due to the debate having been held there on Monday, and the practicality of hanging around afterwards given the distance involved. Nonetheless, it is notable that Morrison spent fully three days campaigning their compared with Shorten’s two, and that Morrison felt it worth his while to conduct a street walk in the electorate of Canning, situated well up the pendulum at 6.8%.

Bill Shorten is overdue for a visit to New South Wales, where he hasn’t been since he spent the first three full days of the campaign in Sydney. Nonetheless, the prize for the most targeted seat of the campaign so far would appear to be the Sydney seat of Reid, which has been visited three times by Scott Morrison, most recently on Sunday, and was also visited by Shorten on each of his three days in Sydney.

And while you’re about, note also the other new post below this one: episode three of Seat du Jour, covering the Melbourne seat of La Trobe.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,298 comments on “Happy trails: episode two”

Comments Page 17 of 26
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  2. First question on rapists… ScoMo’s dad was a copper.

    He certainly is quick on his feet.

    But really… it’s a state matterl.

  10. I asked Bluey whether he wanted to comment on the conga line of Greens posters who suffer from ODDS.
    Bluey wanted to know what ‘Greens’ are.
    He also asked me to advise Poroti that occies have long memories.

  12. Normally i don’t post Alice Workman unless it attacks Liberals:

    Alice Workman
    ‏Verified account @workmanalice
    4h4 hours ago

    Liberals spotted still handing out how to votes for dumped candidate Jeremy Hearn at the Greenvale pre-poll.

  13. “How much will everything you ever want to do cost?”

    Idiotic question (how long is a string?).

  16. Scotty sounds anxious, starting to get into numerology with numbers, percentages, billions..

    Your at the Gabba, Mate! They don’t understand this

  21. Labor voted against Coalition Multinational tax avoidance legislation because it wasn’t tough enough!

  27. 2 mins ago – 6.43pm

    Mr Morrison attacks Mr Shorten over his claim that Labor will pay for its policies in part with a crackdown on multinational companies.

    He says of the near $400 billion Labor is raising in taxes via its policies only $2 billion will come from multinational taxes.

    Mr Shorten doesn’t agree pointing out that many big companies never pay tax. “This government hasn’t been tough on multinationals.”

    And furthermore its one economic plan for the last three years was to company taxes.

  28. Good to see that the captain of Australia’s one day cricket team is using his influence to halt Adani – that is according to the front page of The Australian. May be just another fake news story of course.

  31. 25 mins ago – 6.19pm

    Tonight Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten are at the Gabba Cricket Ground, Woollangabba. There’s 109 undecided voters in the crowd.

    Both leaders will deliver an opening 60 second statement.

    The rules allow the leaders to walk around and use a microphone to answer questions from the floor.

    Their answers have no time limits – but are likely to be pulled up by host David Speers if they drag out.

    The full debate goes for 1 hour.

    Mr Morrison will speak first.

    https://www.afr.com/news/politics/national/federal-election-2019-livelibs-lose-another-candidate-20190503-h1e16e

  32. Because ‘you’ve paid tax all your life’ you should get a tax refund for the rest of your life as you pay no tax!?!

  33. Speers trying to shut down franking credits debate – Bill has plenty of example amongst the96% who aren’t benefitting

    Scotty defending the 4% and Meher Baba

  34. 10 mins ago – 6.34pm
    ‘Australia needs a change’

    Bill Shorten says after six years the economy needs a change.

    “Wages are the only thing that are not going up.”

    He focuses on the chaos on Canberra, and repeats his statement that you might vote for Scott Morrison and end up with Clive Palmer.

    12 mins ago – 6.32pm
    ‘Australia is the best country in the world’

    Scott Morrison has opened the People’s Forum with a pitch to voters that he would provide “direct and honest answers”.

    “Australia is the best country in the world but it depends on how you manage the economy.”

  35. 8 mins ago – 6.36pm

    The first question from the audience is about sexual assault and the leaders are asked how they will deal with violence against women.

    Mr Morrison goes first, saying as a father of two daughters, he says the big issue is about the disrespect of women.

    Mr Shorten, after asking the questioner’s name, says he agrees with a lot of what Mr Morrison said.

  37. JP says:
    Friday, May 3, 2019 at 6:29 pm

    Barney in Phan Thiet says:
    Friday, May 3, 2019 at 2:02 pm

    JP says:
    Friday, May 3, 2019 at 1:46 pm

    Short version: if those who can no longer claim franking credits sell their shares (to those who can claim the credits), then what’s the point? And where’s the revenue benefit?

    Simple: All the tax paid by the company is kept by the Government and not partly given back to people with no tax liability.

    Remember that a person with a tax liability will have to pay extra tax on franked dividends if their tax bracket is higher than 30%.

    So you’re saying that because the net effect to government is to receive tax at the dividend recipient’s marginal tax rate, it’s in their interest to make sure that dividend income goes, as much as possible, to the wealthy. That doesn’t sound particularly progressive – the same argument could be made to oppose increases to the minimum wage. Instead of low paid workers getting paid more by a company, the same dollars could be paid to CEOs or to shareholders where it would net the government a higher marginal tax rate.

    What Labor is proposing is that the government collects tax on dividends at the recipient’s marginal tax rate, with the exception that if the recipient’s tax rate is lower than the corporate tax rate, then they collect the corporate tax rate instead, with an exception to the exception for pensioners. It’s hardly a paragon of either progressive policy, or fairness.

    If people find it unpalatable that some self-funded retirees have reasonable incomes from their super, and get franking credit refunds on top of that, then the problem isn’t that their franking credits get treated like everyone else’s, it’s that the super income is tax free.

    Remember, anyone who earns far more than those who lose their franking credit refunds will keep the full value of their current franking credits under Labor policy.

    No, your point was that the returns would be less if pensioners got out of franked dividends.

    I’m just pointing out that isn’t so.

  38. 4 mins ago – 6.40pm
    Labor’s costings to come

    An audience member has asked Mr Shorten to outline how much his policies would cost.

    “We are going to release full costings towards the end of next week,” Mr Shorten said.

    He pivots to Labor’s franking policy, repeating lines from the first debate, that it’s about “priorities” and that paying out cheques to people who don’t pay tax is unsustainable.

  41. ‘It’s at the heart of the scare campaign’

    Bill Shorten is continuing to try to explain his franking policy saying it’s a big issue and is at the heat of the government’s scare campaign.

    “When you pay a tax refund to someone who hasn’t paid income, someone else has paid that tax to the government.

    Shorten: “You pay your tax and a refund gets paid to some investor who hasn’t paid any tax.”

    Shorten: “When you don’t pay income tax and you get a refund, it’s a gift.

    Morrison: “Self-funded retirees have worked hard all their lives.”

    Shorten: “Everyone works hard.”

  44. C@tmomma @ #825 Friday, May 3rd, 2019 – 4:43 pm

    Try Firefox’s option, DanG.

    Tried them all – same result on all of them. Never mind. Nothing either Morrison or Shorten says tonight is going to change my vote anyway, so I’ll rely on fellow Bludgers and Amy on the Grauniad blog to let me know what’s happening.

    If there’s a knockout blow landed by either of them it’ll be replayed everywhere by tomorrow at the latest anyway.

  49. I think through his loud pushy manner Morrison looks like he is winning at this point, Speers is trying to shut Bill down.

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