Happy trails: episode three

The Coalition continues to profess confidence about its prospects, but Scott Morrison’s recent campaign movements suggest a campaign on the defensive.

While Coalition sources are still making semi-confident noises in their briefings to the press gallery, Scott Morrison seems to have spent most of past week-and-a-bit sandbagging second-tier seats rather than carving out a pathway to victory, while Bill Shorten has remained on the offensive. In the first three weeks of the campaign, Morrison spent roughly as much time in Labor as in Coalition-held electorates, but going back to last weekend, the only prime ministerial visit that seemed in any way targeted at a Labor-held seat was in the New South Wales Central Coast seat of Dobell last Sunday – and that might equally have been pitched at its marginal Liberal-held neighbour, Robertson.

Morrison’s efforts yesterday were devoted to the Melbourne seat of Deakin, which the Liberals believed they had nailed down in more optimistic times earlier in the campaign. Similarly, Friday brought him to Capricornia, one of a number of regional Queensland seats the Coalition was supposedly feeling relaxed about due to the Adani issue. The visit was to Rockhampton, but the announcement of a new CQUniversity mines and manufacturing school equally applied to Gladstone, located in the similarly placed neighbouring seat of Flynn.

Morrison has also spent a lot of time on seats where the Liberals are under pressure from independents. Tuesday was spent straddling the Murray, where Cathy McGowan’s support group hopes to bequeath Indi to Helen Haines on the Victorian side, and Albury mayor Kevin Mack is taking on Liberal member Sussan Ley in the New South Wales seat of Farrer. On Thursday he went to Cowper, which it is feared the Nationals will lose to Rob Oakeshott.

Most remarkably, Morrison also spent the entirety of a trip to Melbourne last Friday in Kooyong, where he made pronouncements on themes not normally considered staples of the Liberal campaign, namely recycling and protection of threatened species (insert Josh Frydenberg joke). The danger there is that the seat will lose the blue-ribbon seat to ex-Liberal independent Oliver Yates. Still more striking is the fact that Bill Shorten felt the seat worth a visit yesterday, if only to be photographed with puppies at Guide Dogs Victoria.

You can find my accounting of the leaders’ movements in spreadsheet form here.

In other news, the last Sunday newspapers of the campaign are typically the first to bring editorial endorsements, although both the Fairfax titles have squibbed it today, as has Perth’s Sunday Times. The four News Corp papers that have taken a stand have all gone as you would expect. The online headline in the Sunday Telegraph says it is “time to end the worst period of political instability and cynicism since federation” – which you should do, naturally, by returning the government. Granted that this makes more sense if you read the whole thing, though very few will of course. In Victoria, the Coalition gets the endorsement of the Sunday Herald Sun, as it did before the state election in November, for all the good it did them. The Brisbane Sunday Mail’s effort is headlined “Australians can’t afford a reckless pursuit of utopia”; the Adelaide Sunday Mail says it’s “time for a steady hand”, i.e. not Bill Shorten’s.

Also today: the latest episode of Seat du jour, tackling the Perth seat of Hasluck.

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.

1,277 comments on “Happy trails: episode three”

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  1. Bushfire Bill @ #972 Sunday, May 12th, 2019 – 8:06 pm

    Gotta say.. I can’t remember seeing even ONE Labor ad on TV so far.

    I’ve heard the Libs are supposed to be broke, but somebody us paying for their unrelenting splurge of TV commercials. One after another. There’s no end to the bloidy thi gs.

    BB
    You won’t see many. it’s a safe Nat seat so Labor has to save its money and put it further north or south. It used to bug me but I understand it.
    Just give the Labor people a big smile as you go to vote. They’ll appreciate it.

  2. Isn’t that counter-intuitive Al Pal – working his arse off, pumping $1m into a single seat … and he’s going to be comfortably returned?

  3. BB
    If you are in Lyne or Cowper it used to be the case that the ALP candidate paid for the TV and Radio ads out of their own pocket
    A true vanity exercise

    Am in Lyne, and met the local candidate Peter Costa (no relation to Michael) a couple of days ago. Nice bloke. Very smart.

    He used to be Water minister in the state Labor government. Told me some interesting stuff about the Murray-Darling shenanigans.

  5. Late Riser @ #988 Sunday, May 12th, 2019 – 8:14 pm

    Work To Rule @ #975 Sunday, May 12th, 2019 – 8:07 pm

    Late Riser @ #948 Sunday, May 12th, 2019 – 7:48 pm

    OK, I think I’m caught up again. The last time we had this many guesses was back in late February, when there were 90 recorded guesses.

    PB-Guess: Newspoll
    Median: ALP 52.0 to 48.0 LNP
    Mode: ALP 52.0 to 48.0 LNP
    Mean: ALP 52.0 to 48.0 LNP
    No. Of PB Respondents: 85

    Could you throw in a standard deviation to help out a stats nerd?

    1.6 at the moment with 87 respondents. I’ll see if I can make that a permanent stat.

    Cheers. The poll itself (assuming a sample of 2000) should have a standard deviation of 1.1 so plenty of scope for everyone at this point.

    Mind you, I tend to agree with @MarkTheBallot that the natural variation in the polls has been suspiciously absent.

    https://marktheballot.blogspot.com/2019/05/why-i-am-troubled-by-polls.html

  6. I’ve seen Labor, Coalition and Palmer ads on TV, listed in reverse order of frequency. Saw a Green ad earlier this afternoon, the only one I remember seeing.

  7. Rocket Rocket @ #957 Sunday, May 12th, 2019 – 7:53 pm

    I saw a funny meme with Pauline Hanso advising people not to use ‘arabic’ numerals when voting. i would post it here except that it may contravene the electoral act as it would be encouraging an informal vote!

    Interestingly I think a vote numbered in (say) Roman numerals is valid, provided it satisfies the criteria of not having any gaps in it and numbering every square. Not so sure if a mixture of Arabic and Roman would be valid.

    As long as the intent of the voter is clear, the returning officer should give effect to the vote rather than rejecting it on technical grounds.

  8. BB
    Good luck to Peter Costa. I would love to see Gillespie defeated but it isn’t going to happen

  11. Can someone please tell me what the ongoing Engadine Maccas theme is about?

    Toilet humour.

    Minus the toilet.

  12. J341983 @ #1001 Sunday, May 12th, 2019 – 8:22 pm

    Isn’t that counter-intuitive Al Pal – working his arse off, pumping $1m into a single seat … and he’s going to be comfortably returned?

    Does JF have skills talents he can sell outside of politics? Answering that question, since he can afford a bit of insurance it makes a sort of sense. And he can tell himself he’s playing the long game, future PM and all that. (Nah. I don’t believe it either.)

  13. The Engadine Maccas saga is the unsubstantiated allegation that Morrison shat himself before/during/after a NRL match while in the said McDonalds. Amusing for some I guess.

  14. Oakeshott Country @ #985 Sunday, May 12th, 2019 – 8:11 pm

    BB
    If you are in Lyne or Cowper it used to be the case that the ALP candidate paid for the TV and Radio ads out of their own pocket
    A true vanity exercise

    Yep, OC, and we donated shoe leather and our weary souls for you in 2004. Was glad to do it even tho Latham was a sod of a bloke at the end of it.

    BTW Bludgers, OC repaid us a couple of years later. He is literally responsible for my OH still being here. A very skilled bloke indeed.

  17. “Can someone please tell me what the ongoing Engadine Maccas theme is about?”

    From what I can gather ScoMo had a bout of gastro and dived into Engadine maccas to avail himself of the conveniences, but alas didn’t quite make it.

    There but the grace of Hitchins go I.

    I hate and despise ScoMo for just about everything in his political career. Especially given his come to Jesus hypocrisy, but the Engadine Maccas incident doesnt do anything for me.

  19. Re: Mike Cleary a true sporting all rounder. One of only 3 Australians to represent the country in 3 sports: both rugbys and running at the Perth Commonwealth Games but his true sporting success was as the spruiker for World Championship Wrestling.

  21. BB@8:06pm
    I have theory who is paying Libs ads. Remember this government gave $25 millions to Foxtel with no strings attached. I think now you can put two and two together to come up with four.

  22. There are quite possibly 100s of reasons not to vote for Morrison but him having a bout of gastro is certainly not one of them.

  23. “The Engadine Maccas saga is the unsubstantiated allegation that Morrison shat himself before/during/after a NRL match while in the said McDonalds. Amusing for some I guess.”

    A real stinker of a rumour

  25. Al Pal @ #991 Sunday, May 12th, 2019 – 8:17 pm

    Frydenberg is working his backside off In Kooyong. He’s already spent north of a million to hold on. His 2pp in 2016 was I think almost 63 per cent, vs the ALP.
    But I’m told he will fairly comfortably retain, despite the efforts of Burnside and Yates, according to private polling.
    Yes, a swing against, but nothing like that reported by the Guardian and other media a few weeks ago and current chatter.

    I’ve been doing pre-polls in Kooyong and I’d like to think that Josh was in trouble, but I’d tend to agree. I expect he’ll get home with a mid 50’s TPP. Higgins should be closer.

    Having resources sucked into defending ultra safe seats it still a positive outcome. It strikes me that Josh’s overspend and the ridiculous near daily mailout is a sign of how rattled the libs are.

  26. Thanks for the prompt responses folks. It doesn’t sound too good, there’s so much more to criticise him about than this. The theme pops up once in a while, is all.

  28. fozzi logic

    That photo from Germany reminds me of the double decker trolley buses of my youth. They used to run from Adelaide to Port Adelaide and Semaphore. I loved them.

  31. Thanks BH and as always again thanks for 2004 – a great experience for me even if we didn’t achieve much.

    Going into the last week I thought we could win government but in the end the country was saved from a Latham government

  34. Edi_Mahin says:
    Sunday, May 12, 2019 at 7:54 pm
    Given Chloe is married to Bill Shorten it is clear she does not have good taste in men, the same is true for Mrs Morrison. Both of the men are morally bankrupt and I doubt their wives would be much different.

    ——– I sort of agree thanks for comment

    however there seems to be a much bigger picture involved. times are changing, individual karma is one thing, national destiny another. one of these individuals will find karma this saturday – this is not presidential politics, and bill has rightly buried himself in the party – however he is no cleanskin we know that, but bestvoption at present

  37. Long time lurker, and forgive me if i have missed something, but Neil tresize was a minister in the Cain/Kirner governments and Justin madden was a minister in the Bracks/brumby government. Between them over 500 games and 4 premierships.

  38. latham would have been better than howard

    sad thing about latham is that he thinks he was badly treated — by own party

  39. Blobbit @ 8.02 I thought you had caught me out by bugging my computer for a minute there…
    {hits refresh again}

  42. BH @ #1029 Sunday, May 12th, 2019 – 8:36 pm

    fozzi logic

    That photo from Germany reminds me of the double decker trolley buses of my youth. They used to run from Adelaide to Port Adelaide and Semaphore. I loved them.

    We had trolley buses in Brisbane too back in the 50s and perhaps a bit after. They were actually quite nice to ride in without the very rough internal combustion engines of buses of that vintage. The main downside is Brisbane is pretty hilly and lots of rather weird intersections so the pantographs were prone to parting ways with the overhead wires so the driver had to get out and readjust things.

  47. @vogrady2132

    Shorter @ScottMorrisonMP launch today me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me,me

  50. Graham Annesley too who dudded Barry and led to the monumental by-election loss for the libs in Miranda in October 2013.

    Barrie Gomersall had a run too.

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