 Hi and welcome to this week's episode of Off the Hill, the ANU's weekly look at what's been happening in the 2016 federal election campaign. As always I'm joined by my co-hosts, constitutional law expert Ryan Goss and political marketing expert Andrew Hughes. And as always if you're in Canberra on Tuesday night, come along to our weekly public policy forum. This week it's talking about climate change, energy and the environment. All the details that you need on the ANU website at anu.edu.au. Now we've had a think this week about who is actually watching at this point, who are we talking to in regards of the election and who is really at this point still thinking about who they might vote for. Now from 2013 we have some kind of idea of this that about 50% of people don't even think about how they vote. We've asked this in the Australian election study. They knew long ago. They've never really given it any thought. About a third decide during the campaign at some point. That's kind of good to know. But 10% decide on election day. On the day itself. On the day itself. And this is self-reported. This is what they say they do. About half of those seem to be actually really rational. Really cautiously thinking about the issues. They're just taking their time to come to their own decision. About half of those just don't care. Now what do you think about this Andrew? Oh look it's natural to me because after all you know you think about politics for most people. Us yes we're involved with it. We're interested and engaged with it. Most people no. I mean most people there's an issue or two. Yeah where it's nice it's hot. It's something they care about. But politics overall they don't really give much thought to it. Well that's that 50% really. Exactly right. Who don't think. They don't engage. They vote usually for who their parents voted for. Yeah exactly. And look you can play this a bit too as a politician like Turnbull has. He's made his campaign nice and boring, nice and flat. And it's a good tactic. It's a good strategy because then people don't get engaged. There's no traction or momentum to be gained by the opposition. They have to take all the running with this. Because they know people aren't listening. They're going to switch off in a long campaign. You could say anything by week five. We could say anything in week five. I'll just stop you there. I think there's also an appetite after the last six or ten years for boring politics I think that for a long time there whether it was the hung parliament or the leadership schools people had to pay attention and felt obliged to pay attention to what was going on in politics. But there's a craving to not have to do that. Yeah but I think maybe after that period and people have just gone I've had enough of politics for a bit. It was so negative and it was so nasty and it was so really personal too. It wasn't on issues. People just went why be engaged if all you guys could do is hate each other. And I think we've had enough of that at the moment. Now I think and I don't like doing this but I think overnight we've heard that this isn't always the case. Yeah and very sad news overnight of the death of Joe Cox the killing of Joe Cox on the streets of London campaigning in the context of the EU Brexit referendum. The facts aren't entirely clear at this stage but it's a reminder that politics can have real impacts on the people who are practicing it and the practitioners in politics and that we perhaps owe a little bit more sympathy to our politicians some of the time and to remember that they're motivated by almost all of the time by good intentions and honorable intentions. Yeah absolutely. But I think more generally it's also a reminder that you know there are many people in Australia who are disengaged from politics. The difference that in Australia compared to many other countries is that all of those people are obliged to vote. A compelled to vote which is not the case in the US or the UK or Canada or these places. And so I think that creates a different dynamic in Australia and also just and the fact that we've had a quarter of a century without a recession we've had been pretty comfortable in Australia for 25 years. One could be forgiven for thinking that that politics didn't matter and that it was a logical choice not to pay too much attention. There is a strong argument that compulsory voting almost creates an environment of stability. Yeah. That we do have to think about politics occasionally and that it's good for us but that we don't think about it in these huge spikes up and down heaps of passion that we see in a lot of other countries. Yeah we've heard it's many changes as Prime Ministers too where there hasn't been much really to upset people. People have seen those changes and gone okay well it was due to this issue or that issue we haven't been that concerned over the future of our democracy. True. Now one place that I know you both passionate about and we're people are passionate about politics is Queensland. Andrew. Bob Catter our force for the North right. He love him. Yeah look and and Queensland itself is interesting because of the dynamics in the campaign all those marginal seats you have to win them to win government overall. And there's like nine I think they've identified now all the way up the Queensland coast starting all the way from basically Brisbane itself going as far north as Cairns and Cape York. So you know it's a huge geographical area huge diversity turf opinions and views. And and Turnbull's doing very very well in Brisbane itself this is the thing to note which is why it's really hard at the moment for Labor to get traction in Queensland. They're trying their best they're up there all the time they're sending people up there all the time. But Brisbane isn't Queensland. No it's not. To a large extent. No and and and dare I say because being a Queenslander as Brian is you don't ever say that you're you know from Queensland if you're from Brisbane you're from Brisbane and then there's the rest of Queensland. I'm surrounded by. Well Andrew doesn't speak to me I'm a Queenslander but but but I think in political terms the dynamic is is is different in Queensland in so many ways but one of the ways in which it's different is that there are two Conservative parties in Queensland that are quite powerful the National Party is the main or the remnants of the National Party is the main Conservative force in Queensland which is true of no other state and that continues to be true particularly outside of Brisbane but you see a dynamic where Brisbane itself begins to look like Sydney and Melbourne in the sense that the Liberal Party is the increasingly the major Conservative political force and there's that tension within the Conservative side of politics but also between Labor and those other two points of the triangle. And then and then outside of that you have Cata and you raised Cata now Cata this week has caused all kinds of controversy but that's but this is his MO right. Yeah exactly right and look he's the no filter politician of Australia. So we're talking about his ad here. Exactly right I mean he's ad he's like everything he talks about usually is done to get awareness and get a reaction to what he's saying. It's not about what he's saying necessarily it's about the reaction to what he's saying. Yeah awareness and reaction is slightly different. Exactly right so in this case his ads all about getting that reaction from people and this time look in the context of what's happened now in the last week across the world it looks bad and it is bad. It's kind of toned down. There are other ways to get responses like that not using that sort of issue and number one in politics go the issue not the person. We're talking about him so look he's one right. I know you say that right but come on we have to talk about him and do. And and and he's successfully obtained attention even here on even here on off the hill so I think that's mission accomplished for Bob Cata. That's true he was he was hoping to get out again. He's watching right now that's a Bob. Hello. Now on preferences we do have to move on. On preferences this has been the other thing of the week the other the other side issue with which we're all mildly obsessed but we can't quite say why. Now I don't I think preferences are a big deal and there will be deal because they have two different effects right one is this instrumental effect that yes about 50 percent of the population do use how to vote cards when they apportion their preferences right so they it has a strong effect on election day. It helps low information voters most of him wouldn't vote if they weren't compelled so you know we're helping them along the way. The other thing is that it has this really fun expressive effect and that's what we've seen for instance in the seat of Sydney where you know well the Greens have now backtracked where they were going to preference the the Fred Nile Christian Democratic Party candidate over the you know who they sort of thought was a very urbane gay indigenous liberal candidate. Now what do you think about all this Ryan. Well I think the the as you say the trading of preferences or the apparent trading preferences at this stage of the campaign is really about sending a message to voters that we think the Greens are worse than this party we think the Christian Democrats are worse than this party we think wave is better than these guys but I think it's worth remembering in this campaign different to every campaign in living memory that the trading of preferences is really only about what goes on the how to vote card in the past before the Senate voting changes it fed into behind the scenes mathematical counting of the votes that's not the case now it's only the case if voters pay attention to those how to vote cards well remember that there's still about half of the half of all voters and the Senate I think will really help this year in terms of using how to vote cards because people are going to be confused we know this from the 84 changes that you know people turn up once every three years and say oh I haven't voted what do I do now on the expressive front yeah well exactly right preferences work as a way of expressing who you should vote for a second and so this is you know number one if you're thinking about how to vote this weekend you know vote vote one us it's your primary vote primary preference in other words is number one who do you want number one to represent your point of view secondly it comes into it is like okay well if it's not us it's these guys yep so in a way it's acting as cues to your overall audiology and also it's a great way sometimes of localizing a campaign and making it more important at a local level so you know maybe yeah okay you're good in Canberra but you recognize that these other guys here they're really great as well they're doing stuff you think you can recognize with an express with and connect with give them your second your second choice and it's a reminder isn't it that we're having 150 local elections as much as we're having one exactly we talked about this earlier on in in the show for those who watch all the way through to this point but all of you all of you that that um how someone we've seen state-based campaigns in the Senate it's been a long time since we've seen state-based campaigns being run in the Senate. Nick Xenophon isn't just one of them okay I know enough I know enough about Nick Xenophon but look locally yeah we're seeing some really strong campaigns emerging out this part of the um election period where we're seeing some really great independence come up with ideas and some big battles happening independence though and that's the big right the major parties aren't doing this against Barnaby Joyce Barnaby said to come out and go even more to the right to seem as though he like he's going the Bob Catter approach oh if you saw his statement the other night on on tv on on abc or he made his um his his announcement he said to the big guys you know I'm the guy from the bush Dana he has to do that because he's not getting that momentum against the independent tiny Windsor that's the thing I don't know I think Barnaby's got runs on the board here thoughts for the week um two thoughts the week for me one is that I hear that the Nick Xenophon team is making some inroads in Queensland and it might be picking up some of those Palmer votes that for people who are looking to put their votes somewhere other than the major parties and the second thought is if Britain votes to leave the EU next week we could see major economic consequences quickly and that could have an impact on the campaign yeah my final thoughts is the economy has been bubbling away there for a while now I think we've got to start to see it ramp up again particularly with Brexit being talked about it's you know it's really happening again to with on the weekend Bill Shorten hitting Tasmania making more promises he has to pay for these somehow gets getting back to the revenue generation discussion we've not had yet in the campaign that is utterly boring I think this week's going to be all about Oakshot and Windsor yep and I think Oakshot in particular and let's see what they have to say who's that again we'll remember in time again thanks for watching and we'll see you next week