 So yesterday we saw two positive ads released at the very start of the campaign yet by day's end The first negative commercial was already coming out as well. What do you think this campaign is going to be in terms of style? Well, I reckon it's going to be a sort of a two-track campaign in a sense on both sides That is the leaders are going to have a fair bit positive to say I think Scott Morrison will probably have a fair bit negative to say about labor and tax plans and the risk of putting a Labor government in and what it's going to do to the budget and all those sort of things But he can't do that exclusively So he'll have to have a fair bit positive to say about his government's record of you know Fiscal management and what it means the dividends in the future tax cuts You know wage rises which seems somewhat mythical at the moment, but that seems to be you know one of their one of their promises and Shorten too will have to you know sort of be quite positive They've got a fair bit more to be positive about I think in terms of their plans to do things in a whole range of areas that voters like but the but the other campaign that is the campaign that's waged for the hearts and minds on Primetime television every night is going to be waged through television ads that you know like the ones you just talking about and there I expect there to be a lot of negative campaigning on both sides and the reason I say that is That it's not just the government that is going to be talking about You know bad things Labor needs to remind voters and keep fresh in voters minds the chaos and dysfunction of leadership changes and and ministers and defections and you know Resignations and Barnaby Joyce and section 44 all the all the bizarre things that the 45th Parliament threw up and It can't afford that is Labor can't afford to let voters forget any of that because that probably accounts for most of Labor's Lead in the polls over the last three years But yet at the same time Bill shortens the last link in a way to Labor's own chaos and leadership turmoil and changing Prime Ministers Do you think that strategy of highlighting chaos in the coalition ranks could also then remind people of chaos in the Labor ranks Look, I don't really think that's a huge risk. I mean, I think that's priced in to Bill Shorten's relatively low popularity already And I mean Scott Morrison's running this line yesterday if you vote for me because this was raised with him the issue of you know How can you guarantee Prime Minister that if people vote for you? They'll get you and he said look you will we've changed our culture We've changed our rules just like Labor has if you vote for me you get me if you vote for Bill Shorten You get Bill Shorten, you know, that's the that's the sort of government line So I expect that to be, you know prosecuted over and over again because the government does see Bill Shorten as Labor's weakest link But as I say, I think it's largely priced in already and yet we still see Labor leading and have have seen them leading consistently For pretty much this entire term. So voters have been saying we're planning to change the government or at least we're inclined to change the government Even though we're not particularly inspired by Bill Shorten So, you know, I reckon that's just gonna go on now as for whether The chaos and dysfunctional line works against the government I think it does because it's much fresher in people's minds and because the coalition, you know I mean that that is the government that's there now, you know People voted initially for Tony Abbott then they ended up with Malcolm Turnbull Which for the most part voters seemed to like until they worked out that Malcolm Turnbull Wasn't that different from Tony Abbott as a result of the deals he'd done Yeah, and then for no reason at all that's ever been explained. He was suddenly replaced by Scott Morrison Yeah, people are going what happened there And of course we've seen a whole slew of ministers leave Particularly prominent ones like Julie Bishop and Kelly O'Dwyer. We've seen, you know a defection We've seen resignations all over the place It has been a very chaotic government and so Scott Morrison's you know really wanting to kind of that's his problem in a way he's wanting to run on his record at one level and kind of Completely hide the record of the government on another level Yeah, and it's funny you mentioned before about aspiration of Labor and how they do the aspirational policy They do a lot of progressive policies and yet for a long time there It was also the strength of Malcolm Turnbull the way he talked progressive policies the way he talked about marriage equality and how He wanted to be associated towards the very end of that campaign would be no supporter of it Do you think though that the aspirational message of the government is going to get lost by Labor's aspirational messaging strategy? Probably will I think I mean I you know as I described it last week after the two sides had done their budget and budget and reply I thought Labor put forward vision the government had essentially put forward accounting and Those two things don't really compete I mean labels is speaking to the hearts of people as well as their minds And I think the coal isn't speaking more to their minds and to some insecurities that might feel about you know Labor You know blowing the budget surplus down the track and you know spending too much money and raising taxes and these sorts of things I mean Labor does have an image problem there. There's no question But I think again, I think a lot of that is already priced in and voters do want to see action on climate change They do want to see action on flat wages. They do want to see more money put into education and training They do feel like Things like, you know pumping serious extra money into cancer relief and cancer research is another hundred and twenty five million dollars announced on Day two by Labor for cancer research specifically in 20 million I think for pancreatic cancer, which is a particularly, you know low survival rate cancer So those sort of things really do connect with people and that that was what Labor's Pitch was in the in both the sort of budget reply and in what Shorten's had to say since it's been about establishing Connection points with with voters, you know, there's no doubt the government's got a good story to tell here too in terms of management of the economy It's projecting a surplus and it's projecting surpluses down the track and it's also Proposing quite significant income tax cuts But how much do voters buy that really if those income tax happening cuts happen in 2022 and in 2024 And you know the surpluses that they're banking a lot on they're ten years down the track So we're getting into sort of airy fairyland here in politics a bit probably on both sides But I think Labor starts ahead in this election campaign and has a better hearts and minds mix in its policies For that reason Do you think that Labor will go very hard early on with the election campaign as well to try and keep those people? They've got right now and get them into pre poll voting Get those numbers banked before the actual election day just in case there's any sort of surprises on the campaign trail Being launched by the coalition a la what happened with Michael Daly in the New South Wales election? Yeah, that's exactly what I had in mind too as you were saying that the Michael Daly thing I saw Michael Daly the only time I ever met him actually was at a press club lunch In the second in the second to last week of that campaign when Michael Daly's Labor opposition was traveling very well in that New South Wales election and even one of his staff said to me that you know things don't always go as well as they were going He actually predicted that something was coming well as it happened that video emerged of you know daily saying that you know Chinese People with PhDs were taking jobs and suddenly the campaign just fell apart So it's true events can happen in campaigns and anything we say now now about what looks like the likely outcome and how voters are going to You know connect and react and so forth All of that subject to you know the events and the unknowns and even even external events really that can Influence campaigns, but I think you're right if Labor's ahead at the start of the campaign Then it probably wants to get as many people voting early as Possible to sort of bank that support before anything you know why leave it up to chance I think pre-poll voting opens on the 29th of April. So correct. Yeah, it's not far away really and You know that then I guess You know people will start casting their votes and it used to be that the pre-poll votes favored the conservative side Maybe that's always going to be the case. The theory was that Conservative voters were more inclined to be wealthy and wealthy people were more likely as a cohort to you know To be away traveling holidaying whatever it might be So, you know, we'll just have to wait and see on that But I reckon Labor's probably going to be going pretty hard on those pre-poll votes Yeah, and you talked to me for about connection points, right? And one of my things I look at and I think about anyway is we also have disconnection points Where we just walk away from something or a brand or a candidate because of whatever issue to me Adani's one such issue There's a point there where both sides going to have to come out clearly and say whether they want it or don't and I see this has been a you know a great opportunity For those on the flanks be it one nation or Clive Palmer and the Greens on the left to come out and really hurt either Labor on one side or on the other for the coalition hurt them on the far right flank Do you think that could be the case? Well, I think I agree sort of broadly although I think in a sense that that kind of bifurcation of that issue is Almost worse for Labor than it is for the government. There's no doubt There's a lot of liberals in in Victoria who are nervous about Adani and who were hoping that the government wouldn't you know Commit itself any further and Adani as an issue you wouldn't you know play too strongly because it doesn't scan well in Urban Victoria for example, but in Queensland where there where there are supposedly a lot of jobs associated with it And I say supposedly because I don't think the the employment Associations of that project or anywhere near as Rosie is it's advocates of you know often said but nonetheless in Queensland where jobs are an issue and where Labor has a You know should have and does have a very strong relationship with Labor unions there who care about jobs and regional economies and so forth Adani is you know something they need to support as well So I think both parties have this kind of dualism in their positions and it makes it quite hard for them If in truth, I think both of them would just wish it wasn't an issue I agree with you. It's not so not so hard to sort of you know kind of Narrowcast different positions and I think for that reason That's why it's gonna kick on for the campaign because both parties are trying to figure out a way to deal with that This issue yeah without coming across as being either anti Queensland or anti inner city electorates Yeah, and it's gonna be a really tough one I think it'll drag out into maybe the second or third week of the campaign before I resolve it Yeah, I mean they're both you know that what what are they saying politics? They're both walking both sides of the street, you know, they're sort of trying to I mean look at the way Labor is kind of messaging it It's you know It's sort of it's kind of dog whistling a bit about it and he's saying that it doesn't really like the project But it won't do anything to to sort of create sovereign risk Which means that if Labor is elected and if contracts have been signed label on of those contracts And it's you know, just proposing that you know, it's it's wanting to be seen as being sort of essentially You know hostile or unenthusiastic about the project at the same time is not actually saying it will stop the project because Of those reasons we were talking about before so yeah, yeah, it's a it's a tough one Yeah, I remember back in back in John Howard's time right lintin Crosby the famous liberal party strategist and campaign director You know when he saw how it being behind the polls he turned it into trying to make it a race for local seats on local issues And I see that happening in this election because they are behind But yet you look at the way it's playing out to not every seats are winner for the coalition and not every seats are winner for the Labor either and I think it'll come down to a battle of 20 or 25 seats And it's very good point. Yeah, and I think really that's we're gonna see the battle play out I don't know this morning. It won't be uniform either because I think we're probably I mean They like you can name five seats five liberal seats in Victoria for example, which you can sort of In light pencil put into the Labor column now Assuming that you know the garden state is you know more progressive and and that the redistribution is you know tipped them into into Labor's favor, but it's also possible that The government could you know the coalition could make some gains in some other places It could pick up Lindsey in in New South Wales. It could pick up a couple of seats one or two seats in Tasmania It could it could do better in Queensland than you know Like Herbert for example a Labor seat could return to the coalition Indy in in Victoria, which is you know, Kathy McGowan seat independent that could return to the Liberal Party or to the nationals So it's um, you know, we might actually see a broad shift towards Labor But with some of those losses You know ameliorated by by some against the against the current sort of gains by the government Do you think for that reason there could be some surprises on preference deals? Do you think there could be some minor players who at the moment people don't really care about paying any attention to? But come a week maybe two weeks from now when we start to get a feel for how the elections going but also how parties are performing We could see some shocks and surprises a la Clive Palmer United Australia party suddenly going from nothing to their $28 million spend so far in advertising Suddenly paying dividends because they can make preference deals in some of these more marginal seats up and down the coast Look, it's possible. Can I just say about that $28 million spend of Clive Palmer's if that figure is right? I mean that is a disgrace. That's a coin to Nielsen. Sorry. Well, that is in my view. That is a disgrace I mean when you actually see really wealthy people around the world actually using their money their excess money for good This is just a completely futile vanity project. It's not going to go anywhere. He's not going to win any seeds Yeah, and it you know having Clive Palmer's face on billboards and bobbing up on television It really I think given his performance as an MP when he was there when he was hardly ever rolling up to the House of Representatives and You know, we know the sort of behavior of that company and you know Queensland, Nickel and workers not getting paid and so forth It's really really pretty pathetic. It is it is amazing I think they're able to cap on this sort of thing because 28 million dollars so far by the way So if those figures are correct, they're predicting $50 million for his campaign alone by the end of the election We won't win them anything. No It'll make it an arms race though I think and I'll make that effect where we start to question where the money is in politics and I think we're looking at 2019 election being the first one in Australian history where we hit nine figures on spend