"Sorry, I am going to have to go, the PM's security car has crashed."
And with that, ABC Canberra Parliament House bureau chief Louise Yaxley cuts our interview short, dashing off to co-ordinate coverage of an accident in Tasmania involving Scott Morrison's security detail and two local police officers.
Ironically, we'd minutes earlier been talking about how unpredictable election campaigns can be and how they can turn on an unscripted moment, a gaffe or an unwelcome interaction with a member of the public.
"We're in a heightened state, on alert for anything to happen at anytime," says Yaxley.
"Campaigns can often be boiled down to things that you don't expect them to be. There are little moments that happen or things that emerge where you get to see something that helps the nation distil things, like the Latham handshake [with John Howard outside the ABC radio studios in Sydney on the eve of the 2004 election]. It was a weird moment that came to define Mark Latham in an aggressive light."
Adding to the uncertainty is the campaign teams' reluctance to telegraph where they're headed and what they're doing until the last possible minute.
"Campaigns are very frustrating to cover for journalists and crews travelling with the leaders because we're not in control," says Yaxley.
"We don't know where each side is going to be, we don't know which policy they're going to wheel out — they don't want protesters turning up and they don't want to tip off their opponents — so there are a lot of unknowns. The parties are trying to paint their leader in the best way, so they're in a back room plotting or they're waiting for the rain to clear to do a pic fac [photo opportunity] so their leader looks better.
"You'll sit around for three hours and then it's all on and you get 10 minutes to do everything – cover the photo opportunity, get your question in during the media conference, record a piece to camera in front of the leader, then send the footage back, file your story and get back on the bus ready to move on to the next 'mystery' destination."
As chief of the ABC bureau in the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery, Yaxley, known affectionately as 'Penguin' (where the nickname came from she's keeping to herself), leads a team of about 20 journalists and oversees camera operators, operations and other behind-the-scenes staff. She's reported on federal politics for the ABC for 28 years and covered 10 federal elections. While some things have changed, covering the campaign is essentially the same.
"The journalism hasn't changed, at the guts of it it's still ask good questions, find stuff out, find out what each policy means, what it will cost, how it will work, who gets what," says Yaxley.
"What has changed is the process by which we cover campaigns. The technology keeps changing and the platforms that we use keep changing. Everything comes back live now so it's much easier to get footage out and, with mobile phones now, you're not having to worry about finding a public phone box to file your story [like I did as a young radio news reporter]!
"When I started, people tuned in on radio or the 7pm news but now they're getting news on their phone, they can watch press conferences live on the News Channel, or they're on YouTube or Facebook, they might be listening to the podcast, or the audio stream, reading our online articles or our blog. For the first time this campaign, we're doing Instagram Stories from this bureau, and I find that it's not that different from writing a radio news story because you're just condensing and distilling something quite complicated into straightforward, simple language except on Instagram it's funkier. So, we're constantly adapting to ensure there's something for everyone. Not everyone is going to get their news from the high-end option, like a deep dive on Four Corners or an in-depth feature, it's important that there is a range of outlets."
Presenting a balance of perspectives
Yaxley has editorial responsibility for TV, radio and digital content produced by the bureau and says much consideration is given to evaluating what to include or exclude from a story, what angle to take or how much weight to give to a particular development.
"Democracy is a great thing and it's a privilege and a huge responsibility to have the nation turn their eyes to us to help them find out the information they need to know to decide how they will vote," says Yaxley.
"That involves us ensuring we include lots of perspectives and a range of voices in our coverage. So, we have constant conversations with a range of senior colleagues and the broader ABC News network about how we do that. We ask what are we going to do with this particular development, announcement, comment, etc? Why would we include it or exclude it in a story? Why is it important? Are we being fair? Are we being accurate? Have we thought about all the different perspectives? We ensure that we've considered it carefully to make sure that what we broadcast or put on the website or anywhere else is there for a good reason. It's really important and it's what we do every day covering federal politics, but this is the most extreme version of what we do, during a campaign we're under even more pressure and scrutiny."
What it's like following the leader
The ABC has one journalist and three camera operators, on rotation, travelling with both Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese (when the Labor leader was sidelined with COVID the 'bus' rolled on with a range of other frontbenchers). State and local news teams provide coverage of other parties, independent candidates and issues.
The journalists following the leaders file TV crosses to the News Channel, radio and digital content and feed information back to correspondents in the Canberra bureau who pull together the key stories, providing an overview, context and analysis across platforms.
"The journos on the road, their roles are to observe, put good, hard questions to the leaders and to try to get a bit of access, as much as they can, to find out what that side is up to and then see how the leaders are received," says Yaxley.
"But that's hard because it's so controlled — if you go to a place, you don't get much of a chance to see the leaders interacting with real people that often.
"Now the media conferences are broadcast in full — the public hears every question including some 'gotchas', a few clunky/weird ones, as well as probing on policy. Journalists take different approaches and that is part of our democracy."
The travelling camera operators juggle shooting video and still images, sound and the technical side of transferring footage back to base and broadcasting live from on the road. And while the parties like to keep their plans secret, seasoned journalists and crews have a fair idea of what's in store.
"The campaign [organisers] now use WhatsApp, but in the old days they would literally stick a bit of paper on your hotel room door which would say 'get up in the morning, be on the bus at x time and pack your bags because at some point you'll fly somewhere during the day'," Yaxley recalls.
"But the campaign routine hasn't changed in Australia and most of the seats that you're visiting are still the same. Vast bits of Australia that are not in marginal seats don't get visited very much, you go to a limited number of places that are going to decide the election. So, the usual rule is that a campaign will tell journos 'you might want to rug up', meaning they're heading to Tasmania or 'it could be warm', which means you're doing a swing through North Queensland. It's often obvious if you're going to a certain place they're going to be talking about health or forestry policy, so the destination gives away what policy they're releasing.
"The 1998 election on the GST stands out for me as it was the clearest example of the public being asked to decide on a policy. And the 1996 election was a highlight – it was a fascinating contest between Paul Keating and John Howard. It was my first election here, but I had some luck predicting the outcome in a press gallery tipping contest."
The lure of covering news that affects everyone
Louise Yaxley grew up in northern Tasmania and set her sights on a career in journalism as a child.
"I always wanted to be a journalist," she says.
"My parents had a shop, and, from a young age, I would bring in the newspapers as they arrived, so I've wondered whether that was part of it or I've always joked that it was Kermit the frog reporting for Sesame Street News — I think he's a good role model! But I've always been interested in knowing what's going on and then telling other people."
Yaxley studied journalism at university then started out working in newspapers in Central Australia and commercial radio before joining the ABC's Canberra bureau as a radio news reporter in 1994.
Covering the biggest stories in the country has kept her fascinated for almost three decades as she moved through roles including political correspondent for ABC radio current affairs programs and ABC News digital, producer on The House hosted by Annabel Crabb, and bureau chief since 2019.
"It's an amazing place to work because of the breadth of stories," she says.
"You're touching on all sorts of things from politics to national affairs and international affairs to Senate committees that might cover things that are really quite personal to people – there was recently one on sleep! You can report on almost anything from here and you're covering issues that affect everyone. And I have really loved working in radio, which is where I started, because you're so accessible to so many people, they're listening to you in the car or in bed or from any part of Australia."
Yaxley has reported on prime ministers from Paul Keating to Scott Morrison, covered leadership spills on both sides and reported on the federal response to major news events, including the Port Arthur massacre, the September 11 attacks, the Iraq war, the Bali bombings, natural disasters and — the biggest story of her career — the global pandemic.
"The pandemic was such a drastic example of the government's rarely-used powers to close borders and strictly limit personal freedoms," she says.
"As the scale of the disruption hit us in the early stages of the pandemic — we grappled with how to explain it to a nation that hadn't experienced a pandemic for a century."
"The early days of Australia being involved in the Iraq War was [also] a really significant challenge as a journalist. There were signs from John Howard that Australia would join the Coalition of the Willing, but the government didn't want to talk about it. We [in the press gallery] were trying to find out if Australia was going to be going to war and there was this heavy sense of responsibility in covering a big moment like that."
It's an all-consuming job, even more so during an election, and it doesn't stop come May 21 – there'll be a new government and the repercussions of the result on the other side to cover. And while she watches federal politics closer than most of us — and has had some success picking a winner — Yaxley has been around long enough to know it's a risky business for a journalist to assume they know the outcome.
"I think it's a bit concerning if journalists think they know who will win because it's up to the millions of Australians who vote and our job is to accurately reflect the things that go into their decision making," she says.
"We know what the factors are that should be playing into that. We know that the polls show certain things, we know that Labor started out in front, we know some seats are tight. So, we're reporting on all those things and then we wait and see like everyone else, and I think that's great."
ABC News brings you the election results on ABC TV, radio and digital platforms from the moment polls close on Saturday, May 21
