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. Bill Shorten at his rally

    “I’m reliably informed that thousands of Melburnians were afraid to go out to dinner last night…in case they ran into Peter Dutton”

  3. Confessions says:
    Sunday, May 12, 2019 at 11:26 am

    Jeez is Josh reading a bedtime story to his kids, or giving a campaign launch speech?

    It all comes down to targeting.

    I’m sure Rex will approve.

  4. Morrison has gone for too long on ‘people I have met’ routine.

    “As I stood over the rotting stench of those carcasses’. I bet that’s never been said at a launch before. 🙂

  5. Someone must’ve told Scotty to pep it up a bit. His tales of meeting various people was starting to sound like he was delivering a eulogy.

  8. sonar, I apologise for what I wrote. I am not in a good head space today with my own battles with depression and that self hatred comes out in how I treat others. I have times when I wish I was dead, I have been suicidal, it makes life hard.

  11. @Edi Mahin….peace mate.
    I accept the apology…..there are places and people who can help you. Seek them out. Take care.

  13. Someone’s finally told him: “Don’t mention Bill Shorten.”

    (But DO mention all Labor’s achievements, and take them as your own)

  16. How many of this multicultural society came here as refugees, or descendants of refugees? Yet the government jails refugees in overseas camps, they are locked up for fleeing for their lives. This is a disgrace and Labor would do the same. Both parties support this evil.

  19. Edi Mahin: “Aboriginals were here before us, but not for 40k years, and they were and are treated terribly in many ways. We should be helping them to recover as a community that has been destroyed by having there lands invaded. However when I am at events that have these welcomes I just ignore them, they mean nothing to me.”

    I agree 100%

    In New Zealand you will experience some rousing welcoming ceremonies, be they performed by Maoris, pakehas or combinations of both. These appear to be based in some ways on traditional Maori ceremonies.

    As a general rule, pre-colonial Australian Aboriginal communities did not provide much of a welcome to people from other communities, who were always perceived as potential thieves of women, equipment, etc. Visiting individuals or groups were often expected to sit for days at a distance from the camp of their hosts waiting for an invitation to come closer which sometimes never came.

    It would therefore seem that the majority of Aboriginal welcoming ceremonies are modern inventions. In my experience, some of these invented ceremonies – if Aboriginal people are involved in them – can make a bit of an impact. But what I encounter more and more frequently is simply some white person getting up at an event and stating “Before we start, I wish to acknowledge the traditional owners of this land, the er…er…er…mumblegrumble people and their elders past and present.” To me, these are empty words: although someone is moving their lips to pronounce them, there’s absolutely nothing going on in their heart. Quite often the wrong Aboriginal community is mentioned and/or their name is pronounced totally incorrectly.

    If we were really serious about this stuff, we would stop doing anything at all on any land in Australia without first obtaining the permission of the relevant elders to do so. In fact, if we were really serious about doing something about the guilt we profess to feel, we would give all of Australia back to the Aboriginal people and go somewhere else. Instead, we mouth some empty words to try to make us feel better.

    As has happened in many parts of the world throughout human history, my ancestors took someone else’s land away, evicted them, and totally destroyed their way of living. My current comfortable lifestyle depends on that piece of history. I might wish to find a way to maintain that lifestyle without feeling guilty, but there’s no get out of gaol free card. I’ve seen the soft-hearted cheer and cry at Midnight Oil’s lyrics “it belongs to them, let’s give it back.” But, if they claim to agree with that sentiment, what do they consider it to actually mean in practice?

    There are no easy answers to these questions and, for me, having someone make a throwaway acknowledgement of the mumblegrumble people’s custodianship of the land certainly doesn’t answer them.

  21. Edi_Mahin @ #365 Sunday, May 12th, 2019 – 11:58 am

    How many of this multicultural society came here as refugees, or descendants of refugees? Yet the government jails refugees in overseas camps, they are locked up for fleeing for their lives. This is a disgrace and Labor would do the same. Both parties support this evil.

    And it sounds like you don’t give 2 hoots about the genocide of Australia’s Indigenous peoples either. Which is part and parcel of the Welcome to Country, you fool. The Welcome to Country is ALL about paying respect to Indigenous Australians after over 200 years of treating them like shit.

  27. Baba

    The welcome ceremony is part of reconciliation
    That’s different from white people saying I pay respect etc

    The latter can be true for non aboriginal people and is a great improvement on Aboriginal people don’t exist.

  28. I suppose, when your aim is to have small government, you really can’t crow about your achievements. You don’t have any.

    Except of course, making them up or claiming others’.

  30. I have yet to see a person pass up a promotion because they will be paying more tax.

    Even his logic is unbelievable.

  33. There’s something about this obsession with tax that doesn’t quite inspire.

    What I mean is: it’s tax. Yawn.

  34. Are people really complaining that aboriginal welcome ceremonies aren’t entertaining and animated enough to keep their interest, so they therefore are not authentic or worthwhile?
    A welcome and/ or acknowledgment are a few words of respect that mean the world to us indigenous people. Sometimes in life you just do things that are kind and polite, that is an end in itself.
    They do not have be ancient, or entertaining, they can be a new invention (what the hell is wrong with that)…people really over think these things, or look for some offense when there is none there.

  35. There are no easy answers to these questions and, for me, having someone make a throwaway acknowledgement of the mumblegrumble people’s custodianship of the land certainly doesn’t answer them.

    Well, obviously, meher baba, in the circles in which YOU move that is the kind of Welcome to Country that gets uttered, if one gets uttered at all. However, as I don’t live in Tasmania the ones that I see and hear are only getting better and more meaningful as time goes by and people of all skin colours invest more thought, meaning and purpose into them. Not to mention the ones which are performed by Aboriginal Elders at major events. Such as the one done yesterday at Labor’s Cultural Policy launch in Melbourne. However, I fully understand that it’s impossible to see Melbourne and the rest of enlightened Australia from your back door in Tasmania.

  37. Neither parties hold true campaign launches, if they were true campaign launches they would occur at the start of the campaign. This means by the time the launch comes people are voting and there should not be anything to announce. Any announcements at this stage come too late, people have already voted.

  40. This first home buyers scheme sounds very similar to those schemes operated by state governments. Except the one in WA isn’t limited to first home buyers, but limited by income, regardless of whether it’s your first home or not.

  41. “First Home Loan Deposit Scheme, which I announce today…”

    In other words, “We cooked it up yesterday.”

    And by the way… how much will it cost?

  43. House prices will increase under a LNP government.

    Lie.

    Doesn’t he knows what has happened to house prices for the last year?

  45. torchbearer,
    They do not have be ancient, or entertaining, they can be a new invention (what the hell is wrong with that)…people really over think these things, or look for some offense when there is none there.

    It’s like, reinterpreting Shakespeare is fine, but not Welcome to Country ???

  49. torchbearer

    They do not have be ancient, or entertaining, they can be a new invention

    Thank you. Indigenous culture is alive, growing and changing as life does. It doesn’t exist in a museum. It is in all of us.

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