Two weeks till the three Might election day, and Anthony Albanese is cracking jokes about Star Wars.
Each profile and sketch of the prime minister throughout this marketing campaign – which is now previous its midway – speaks of the arrogance and even swagger Albanese tasks as he travels the nation. It is among the starkest variations to his 2022 marketing campaign, which was dominated by missteps: forgetting key financial figures, then his premature Covid prognosis and pictures of being chased out of a press convention by journalists.
This time, he’s on prime and he is aware of it. This week’s Guardian Important ballot places him in an election-winning place. Peter Dutton is working out of time to stage a comeback.
Nonetheless, there’s a quiet carefulness to Albanese’s campaigning – he is aware of first-hand how rapidly a marketing campaign can come off the tracks, and the way a written-off underdog can win from behind.
I’m contemporary again from every week on Albanese’s marketing campaign bus. Earlier, I tailed the Liberal chief on his first week within the marketing campaign strain cooker. From up shut and afar, the 2 campaigns are completely different beasts.
Albanese bounds into the general public eye, usually accompanied by numerous his higher-profile ministers; Dutton is on fixed excessive alert, nonetheless adjusting to the barrage of questioning he faces every day. Whereas the prime minister cracks jokes or waxes lyrical over his footy crew, his rival appears to finish most press conferences with a detrimental story, a backtrack or leaving extra questions than solutions.
One in all Albanese’s few missteps – actually and figuratively – was to assert he didn’t fall off a stage in week one. It was a bizarre second, given the media pack was there to see (and movie) it, even when the instinctual response was to downplay misfortune. The Coalition marketing campaign machine pounced on it, determined for any crack within the Labor facade; the “Albo lied about falling off the stage” assault hasn’t actually taken maintain wherever past Liberal social gathering memes, however that hasn’t stopped them.
This week’s debate noticed one other, extra consequential flub, when Albanese claimed Labor had by no means commissioned modelling on detrimental gearing modifications. It was the opening for Dutton’s finest punch of the evening, Albanese trying uncomfortable as Dutton claimed his opponent “has a problem with the truth”. The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, had earlier mentioned it was “not unusual” for governments to get such recommendation, at the same time as he careworn it wasn’t on their radar – and was rolled out to assist clear up the state of affairs the following day, splitting hairs that the federal government had obtained “advice” not “modelling”.
The Coalition this week launched an “Albanese Live Lie Tracker”. Each side are doing this; Labor’s marketing campaign machine sends out a tally of Dutton’s “daily lies” to journalists.
Some Liberals quietly grumble that the respective press packs are grilling Dutton tougher than they’re Albanese. Having been on each marketing campaign buses now, with a revolving forged of press gallery colleagues and opponents, I can say it’s not for the rationale Dutton sympathisers would possibly wish to assume.
Albanese has fronted up usually to robust TV and radio interviews or all-in press conferences over his three years; Dutton has not. Whereas Labor has constantly launched coverage over their time in authorities, the Coalition has left a lot of their heavy lifting and reform concepts to the final minute.
This implies many Labor insurance policies have already been totally raked over within the lead-up to the ballot, as has Albanese on his errors. Dutton, alternatively, is going through his inquisition now, within the extra intense interval proper earlier than voters make up their minds.
To make certain, Albanese remains to be – rightly – getting contemporary questions over Labor’s promise final election to chop $275 from energy payments, their power programs plan and new guarantees on housing, tax and price of dwelling. He has gotten cranky at instances, snipping just a little too vehemently at a query he didn’t like and downplaying the journalist as a “state correspondent”; he rubbishes questions on minority authorities and potential cooperation with the Greens, not bothering to disguise expressions of annoyance or dismissiveness.
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However there’s solely so many instances you possibly can write the identical story – which leaves Albanese respiratory room for lighthearted podcasts, or a ferry experience with journalists.
Dutton, in addition to having to defend his coverage bulletins within the warmth of the marketing campaign, additionally has to reply to breaking occasions. His severe error (slip of the tongue or pure mistake) in claiming the Indonesian president had introduced that Russian planes could be stationed on Biak island , gave Labor contemporary ammo for his or her “reckless and risky” assault. And confusion and a deliberate lack of readability over public service cuts leaves Dutton trying evasive and difficult every time he’s requested.
The opposition chief couldn’t even catch a break when he lastly let down the shutters to kick a footy round with a number of native children in Darwin. Throughout his solely actually easygoing press look this marketing campaign, a wayward kick despatched the ball crashing right into a TV digicam, leaving the operator with a bleeding gash on his head.
Dutton’s marketing campaign is workmanlike. Quite a few visits to factories in his first week have given method to countless petrol station picture ops; a marketing campaign occasion right here, a constructing web site there.
Albanese seems in the meantime to be genuinely having fun with his time hopping across the nation – if just a little drained at factors. Becoming a member of Guardian Australia’s Full Story podcast on Thursday, he downed a piccolo at 3pm, a caffeine enhance forward of some engagements he mentioned lay forward into the afternoon and night.
On two separate events this week he introduced up, unprompted, his plan to look at Star Wars on 4 Might (“May the Fourth”) after election day. Journalists and even his personal workers barely handle to suppress quiet groans when he goes off on a tangent at every media look a few native infrastructure venture he’s backed close by, or about his canine.
Others have commented at how few real public interactions each males have had on this marketing campaign. Safety threats detailed lately partly clarify the reticence, at the same time as Albanese spoke this week of how he enjoys getting out to fulfill punters.
With two weeks till election day, Albanese seems in management. However there’s nonetheless a protracted method to go earlier than he is aware of whether or not he’ll be watching Star Wars from his sofa in The Lodge as a winner, or in his own residence in Sydney after election defeat.
