That will do us for this evening
Well that will do us for this evening. Mike and I thank you very much for your company throughout the day, and of course we’ll be back first thing in the morning with day one of the campaign. Mike is already making his way to the Canberra airport where he will board the plane and follow the prime minister at this opening stage of the campaign.
There’s not much we need to sum up tonight, it’s all pretty obvious. Today, on a cool, drizzly autumn day, the prime minister called a double dissolution election for July 2.
Here were the opening salvos.
Malcolm Turnbull:
At this election, Australians will have a very clear choice – to keep the course, maintain the commitment to our national economic plan for growth and jobs, or go back to Labor, with its high-taxing, higher spending, debt and deficit agenda, which will stop our nation’s transition to the new economy dead in its tracks.
Bill Shorten:
I will fight this election on schools and education. I will fight this election for health, hospitals and Medicare. I will fight this election for real action on climate change. I will fight this election to help create a vibrant economy, growing jobs, with reasonable conditions, and security for all. I will fight this election to make Australia a fairer place, where the needs of families, small businesses, the great bulk of Australians, are placed at the top of the priority list. This election is much more than a choice between parties and personalities, this election is about a choice about what sort of Australia do we want to live in.
You have many many weeks to make up your minds. Have a lovely evening. See you tomorrow.
A cold one with a dozen or so of your closest cameras.
The opening salvo of the election, some quick thoughts
There are a couple of striking things about this contest. The first is how low ebb today’s launch of proceedings was, almost anti-climactic. It’s as if everybody knows part of the magic of prevailing in this particular contest will be the judicious use of energy. Normally the atmosphere on election calling day in the federal parliament is electric. Not today. It was more collective resignation: yes, here we go, onwards and onwards and onwards – a campaign without end, presaged by a prelude that was all about the campaign as well. In a way we haven’t stopped campaigning in this country since 2007, and the fatigue of that was etched into today at some level.
It wasn’t that Turnbull and Shorten were flat. They weren’t. Turnbull walked into the main committee room of parliament house brimming with energy, and he delivered the script that would have been weeks if not months in the making with the professional advocate’s force. The Turnbull script boils down to ‘you know I’ll be a better prime minister than that other guy’, laced with a bit of a side of the mouth whisper on personal mandates – I need one, I need your affirmation, to be the great leader Australians thought I might be when I took the Liberal leadership back from Tony Abbott. Never mind the fine print: like my economic plan is actually an idea that first surfaced last week.
Shorten went to Beaconsfield, which was a neat bit of staging to open a contest if you want to play a bit of compare and contrast with your opponent. The script was tight, the script for the Labor leader has been tightening throughout 2016, and he’s not forcing his delivery quite so much. He knows Labor’s strongest suit is the appeal on its priorities rather than pitching himself too aggressively as Messiah in reverse. To lift too quickly would undo Shorten’s institutional approach that has been the key to the party’s success in this term of opposition. But he does have to lift. The election will be about the policy offering, and the team, but it also has to be about him, and Shorten has to believe that when push comes to shove, he can carry that off.
But embedded in today was this sense of limbering up rather than sharp acceleration. On the opening day, the cadence of the 2016 campaign feels different to any other campaign that I’ve covered in the last twenty years. Over the coming weeks, we’ll see whether that was a transient sensation, a low ebb that drifted in with the rain and cleared in the morning, or whether the contours of the campaign itself becomes a significant factor, with mastery of the marathon becoming the key to success on July 2.
The ABC is playing back some of Richard Di Natale from earlier today.
So we stand, as a group, united, the Greens never in better shape. We are a party that is absolutely humming along. The party’s never been in better shape for an election campaign.
We have people knocking on doors, we have got people ringing ordinary people up to discuss their concern. We have got ordinary supporters and members having just conversations with people, because we know that every conversation that we have, with a person on the street, means that’s one more person who’s likely to vote Green, because the biggest thing that is holding the Greens back is that we have a lot of people who still don’t know what our broad suite of policies actually represent.
It’s not only Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten with a lot on the line in this election: Di Natale has made some bold calls as Greens leader, and how he rolls out of this election contest depends on how the Greens ultimately perform at this election.
Just before I forget, the key dates of this election season.
The fed election has been announced. Enrol or update enrolment details by 8pm 23 May https://t.co/xXxgAZX7Rl #auspol pic.twitter.com/EfnNRLTZOJ
— AEC (@AusElectoralCom) May 8, 2016
Shorten is asked why he’s in Tasmania. He says he was scheduled to be at the Beaconsfield commemoration tomorrow, but that’s no longer possible, so he’s there to have a beer with his mates from the mine disaster. Shorten seems to suggest a desire to move on with that – it’s mother’s day, his guests may have somewhere else to be.
Reporters are moving to questions now. He’s asked about Labor lacking the resources to pay for its policies.
Bill Shorten:
Mr Turnbull’s pretty quick to brushover the fact that he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to confirm that he’s going to spend $50bn of budget money over the next 10 years, Australian’s taxpayer money, to give big business a tax break.
By contrast, my priorities couldn’t be any more different than my opponents. We’ve proposed through making multinationals pay their fair share, through changing the unsustainable tax concessions at the top end of superannuation prospectively, we’ve proposed through going after wasteful government expenditure, including the joke of a direct action policy, which my opponents now adopted from Tony Abbott, we will do budget repair that is fair.
He’s asked whether Labor has learned from the past. Shorten says Labor is united. The party now understands that a party that cannot govern itself cannot govern the nation. He says the Liberals, if returned to government, will lapse into civil war. He says Turnbull does not control his own party.
Given he’s been to Beaconsfield today, Shorten goes full Beaconsfield in the summation.
Bill Shorten:
This is my opponent’s 55-day election campaign that he’s given Australia. But I and my united Labor team are ready for this election with our positive policies.
In fact, it was about 10 years ago tomorrow morning, sometime around 4:30, as I remember, that I was privileged to be witness to one of the great Australian stories of tragedy and triumph - the remarkable Beaconsfield rescue.
It was a story of defiant Aussie spirit. People working together, looking after their mates, and winning through. I never forget that it was the death of Larry Knight but what I saw in those intervening 14 days stayed with me every day of my life since then.
It reminds me, even today, that Australia succeeds when we worked together with common endeavour and shared reward. It is an Australia where everyone gets the fair go.
This is the Australia that I and my united Labor team are ready to serve. A Labor government who will put people first.
Bill Shorten makes his election pitch
The Labor leader is standing up in Tasmania now. His pitch is mildly Churcillian, minus the beaches. Voters, he says, will have a choice between a positive plan for the future, and three more years of dysfunction, dithering and disappointment.
Bill Shorten:
I will fight the election on issues vital to millions of Australians.
I will fight this election on schools and education. I will fight this election for health, hospitals and Medicare. I will fight this election for real action on climate change. I will fight this election to help create a vibrant economy, growing jobs, with reasonable conditions, and security for all. I will fight this election to make Australia a fairer place, where the needs of families, small businesses, the great bulk of Australians, are placed at the top of the priority list.
This election is much more than a choice between parties and personalities. This election is a choice about what sort of Australia that we want to live in.
Updated
Joyce is asked about the upcoming contest between himself and Tony Windsor in new England.
Q: It will be a big challenge for you going up against someone who’s got a pretty good track record.
Barnaby Joyce:
Well, I’m only too happy to respect the democratic process. I think our electorate will make a clear choice about where their future lies, and who has the best prospects of being able to deliver to their electorate over the longer term.
But this is not an election about me. It’s an election about our nation. It’s an election about the prosperity of our nation.
So that’s the prime minister. The Nationals have begun their separate pitch now.
Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce.
We have only one place that all of us will live – it is in the future, and that’s why we believe strongly in delivering for that future.
His deputy, Fiona Nash.
We know that when regional Australia is strong, Australia is strong.
Updated
Updated
A campaign about a leader
Back to that campaign of affirmation that I mentioned earlier: please stay in the show room. That’s what that whole pitch from the prime minister was actually about.
But it’s thin, isn’t it?
Turnbull’s economic plan has only really been announced in this past week. He can’t reasonably argue the budget is responsible for anything much at the present time, let alone economic growth, or job creation, or anything else that he cited in that outing.
Boiling it all down?
It’s a campaign about a leader: Turnbull is saying you voters know I’m better than Bill Shorten and if you give me (“I”) a mandate, it will all be good.
It’s the Messiah versus institutional man in Bill Shorten.
And there were only a few questions. Would he have head to head debates with Bill Shorten? (Yes).
Q: Shouldn’t [voters] be disappointed with the Coalition that it’s taken two and a half years for most of your economic plan to be enunciated, let alone put into place?
Malcolm Turnbull:
We have set out a clear economic plan and we’ve laid it out. It is working. The results are there to be seen in strong economic growth. You should - Australians understand that every plan can be judged on its results, and we have strong growth, strong job growth, but it will be put at risk if Labor’s job destroying policies are allowed to become the policies of an Australian government.
Turnbull is asked to explain the rationale for business tax cuts.
There is a very direct relationship between reducing business taxes to a level that makes them more competitive in the world and, indeed, in our region, and it will pay a substantial dividend in jobs and growth.
Q: We’ve had almost three years of debate now about fairness in policy. The central claim against you is your policies are unfair. How do you respond to that?
Malcolm Turnbull:
Our plan, our budget, our economic plan, is fair, not just to Australians today, but to the generations that will come after us. What Labor left us with was a mountain of debt and a trajectory of structural deficits that imposed a larger and larger burden on our children and our grandchildren.
Every measure we have laid out, every single one, will deliver stronger economic growth and more jobs. Economists may debate how much growth, how many jobs. Time will tell, but every single one is pulling in that direction.
Look at the Labor party - everything they are doing, increasing the tax on investment, refusing to relieve the burden of tax on Australian businesses, despite advocating for it in the past, imposing new taxes, everything Labor is doing is absolutely calculated to stop our economic progress in its tracks.
And that is why we are asking theAustralian people for the privilege of governing this country for three more years to secure our prosperity, to secure our future.
Thank you very much.
The “I” in that sentence is far from accidental. Turnbull is reaching over the head of his party to the people: give me a mandate, I need it to deliver.
Never a truer word.
To questions now.
"I will be seeking a mandate .."
In the next sections of the pitch we have the Coalition’s record on border protection and on security, Labor’s recklessness on negative gearing.
He rounds out this way.
Malcolm Turnbull:
These are times for confidence, for optimism, for a clear plan, and we will be seeking a mandate from the Australian people on the 2 July.
I will be seeking a mandate from the Australian people as the prime minister of this country to carry out this plan because we know that it will lay the way, clear the way, for us to have the greatest years in our nation’s history.
A campaign of affirmation
One Coalition person said to me recently this election was about keeping voters in the showroom. The analogy works like this: the voter has already decided to purchase a Turnbull, we just need to make sure they don’t wander across the lot on a whim and suddenly start eyeing off a Shorten.
It’s a campaign of affirmation in other words, which is it’s own thing. You’ll hear that thinking in this section of the pitch.
Malcolm Turnbull:
Now, our national economic plan is already reaping rewards for Australians. We are seeing business confidence and growth at higher levels. Last year, the economy grew 3% in real terms. Over 300,000 jobs were created last year. The highest since 2007, and 26,000 new jobs were created in the month of March alone.
That is the record that we’ve established already, and we will be seeking the mandate of the Australian people to continue and complete that national economic plan, because that is the key to us achieving and realising the great opportunities of these exciting times.
During this election campaign, my opponent, Mr Shorten, will undoubtedly make very big promises or continue to make very big promises of higher spending. And I ask Australians when they hear these promises from him and from Labor to remember that Labor has no credible or coherent way to pay for them, other than through more debt and higher taxes.
The choice cannot be clearer at this election.
Turnbull works through a combination of his stump speech studded with the budget initiatives of last week. Given he’s calling a double dissolution election on the basis of failure to pass the ABCC bill, it needs to get a mention in this election pitch. It gets a mention.
Just in that one grab, in tax, you can see the prime minister trying to bridge the Coalition’s policy inclinations with prevailing political reality.
Low taxes, but it's not optional to pay them
Then to tax.
Malcolm Turnbull:
We have established and are establishing the toughest anti-avoidance laws in the developed world. We believe in lower taxes. We do. But it is not optional to pay them. Multinationals will have to pay their fair share in Australia.
Doing it for Australia ..
From economic rationalism to economic nationalism. The big defence spend.
Malcolm Turnbull:
We will develop and build those capabilities so far as we can right here in Australia. Every dollar we can spend in Australia we will. And we will do so by investing in Australian advanced manufacturing, in Australian technology, in Australian science, in Australian industry. Creating thousands of high-tech jobs right across our nation.
Turnbull is back to exciting times.
We live in a time of remarkable opportunity. We live in an era when the scale and pace of economic change is unprecedented through all of human history. The opportunities for Australia have never been greater. There are many challenges.
But if we embrace this future with confidence and with optimism, with self-belief and a clear plan, then we will succeed as we have never succeeded before. Our economic plan for jobs and growth is as clear as it is critical - to support this transition to the new economy of the 21st century.
It is the most exciting time to be an Australian. These are exciting times. But we must embark on these times, embrace these opportunities, meet these challenges, with a plan – and we have laid out a clear economic plan to enable us to succeed.
Keeping the course
Now, to the business.
Malcolm Turnbull:
At this election, Australians will have a very clear choice - to keep the course, maintain the commitment to our national economic plan for growth and jobs, or go back to Labor, with its high-taxing, higher spending, debt and deficit agenda, which will stop our nation’s transition to the new economy dead in its tracks.
Malcolm Turnbull addresses reporters
The prime minister opens his election press conference by wishing the mothers of Australia a happy mother’s day.
Meanwhile, down south.
Media gather in #BeautyPoint,Tas for @billshortenmp press conference @ljayes pic.twitter.com/pAkTW2aUBn (@jenniferbech)
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) May 8, 2016
The prime minister’s press conference is coming up in about 10 minutes. Just enough time to boil the kettle lovely people.
Updated
My colleague Lenore Taylor is in listicle mode. She has eight things to know about the coming contest. If you just want the short version, Lenore’s key points are: the election is starting out close, the swing won’t be uniform, it’s a long campaign and a lot can happen, the major parties are offering clear policy choices, it could get nasty, we could see another hung parliament, the Abbott legacy lives on – and for the leaders, this contest could be do or die.
I see we’ve also launched our poll of polls compilation today – here it is for your reference.
I gave you the electoral maths from our numbers guy Ben Raue in our opening Politics Live post today. I see Tim Colebatch has also written a useful election by the numbers piece for Fairfax where he canvasses the prospect of another hung parliament.
Tim Colebatch:
The Coalition will lose seats, but if it can limit its net losses to 13 seats, it will still be able to govern in its own right. By contrast, even after its gains from the redistribution, Labor needs to win 19 seats – or more precisely, win 19 seats more than it loses – to govern in its own right.
You see why it could become another hung parliament.
Catching up with visuals.
This coming election will be a double dissolution election. A couple of fast facts from The Conversation website.
-
Double-dissolution elections do not come along very often. This election will be only the seventh double-dissolution election since federation. The last double-dissolution election was held in 1987, when the Hawke government was returned to power.
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Double-dissolution elections do not always go the way of the incumbent government. In three of the six previous double-dissolution elections – in 1914, 1975 and 1983 – the government was defeated.
It’s quite a good, crisp explainer of the in’s and out’s of double D’s. If you’d like to read, you can find it here.
The Greens are squeezed today between the opening stanzas of the major parties. Greens leader Richard Di Natale has issued a statement at the opening of proceedings.
Richard Di Natale:
Global warming, the unprecedented number of people seeking asylum around the world, inequality, transforming our economy: these are the challenges of our time and it’s the Greens who are providing leadership. Both the Liberals and Labor support new coal mines. They both support detaining innocent people in hellish camps offshore. They both lack the courage to clean up our democracy. They’re a double disappointment and this double dissolution election is an opportunity for voters to demand better.
The budget put forward by Scott Morrison is a four year plan to do nothing on global warming, on creating safer pathways for people seeking asylum, or really cracking down on unfair tax breaks. Labor has also budgeted for a $1bn cut to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, for the continuation of offshore detention and for the destruction of precious places like the Great Barrier Reef in favour of propping up the dying coal industry.
The Greens head into this election proud to have led the debate for a more equal society - one that ensures that multinational corporations pay their fair share so we can raise the revenue we need to fund our schools, hospitals and support for our community’s most vulnerable people. We’re proud to have prevented all the worst Liberal budget measures from becoming law, to have stood for love and equality in the face of bigotry and fear, and to have stood up for those people fleeing torture and war, looking for safety and community here in Australia.
We’re heading to an election with a prime minister who’s proven to be a massive let-down, a budget that fails to address single greatest economic challenge of our time in global warming and the transition to a new economy, and a Labor party that’s frankly failed in its role as an opposition. The Greens are heading into this election with an incredible team of MPs and candidates who stand for a more decent and prosperous Australia.
I can report the prime minister is back safely in his office, flanked by veteran advancer Vince Woolcock, who, from memory, has served every Liberal prime minister since McMahon.
Get out of the way, Michael Jackson impersonator. Move.
Whoever moonwalked across Dunrossil Dr today pls out yourself for a naming and shaming h/t @michael_abraham pic.twitter.com/7xkeKYMrfh
— James O'Doherty (@jmodoh) May 8, 2016
Stand back if you are outside the gates of Government House, the prime ministerial motorcade is heading back to parliament.
Dash cam. Let no vehicular movement go undocumented.
#BREAKING: PM arrives at Government House to officially kickstart the 2016 election campaign #ausvotes #tennews pic.twitter.com/JSzQ5GsTC5
— Adam Todd (@_AdamTodd) May 8, 2016
Magic Mike was on the spot for the Lodge evacuation.
Here we go #Election2016 @TurnbullMalcolm leaves the lodge @murpharoo @GuardianAus pic.twitter.com/J4NjwuQR5I
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) May 8, 2016
Incidentally he’s wearing a particularly fetching orange raincoat, possibly as an homage to Donald Trump. How we roll. Camera in focus, check, fashion forward, check.
The motorcade has arrived for the formalities: the prime minister asks the governor general to dissolve both houses of the parliament. The prime minister returns then to parliament for the opening press conference of the 2016 election.
The prime minister now en route to call the election
The prime minister’s motorcade has just left the Lodge for Government House.
By the way, if you’ve forgotten to enrol to vote, quick sticks people. You can fix that here.
If you aren’t on social media, the “premature erection” phase of the election preamble may have passed you by. Nick Xenophon has been complaining overnight about signage.
Premature erection = cheating. Rules say posters cant go up till 6pm on day writs issued. Play fair! pic.twitter.com/0k9EDu4Yae
— Nick Xenophon (@Nick_Xenophon) May 7, 2016
You might consider yourself fortunate to have missed it, now that you’ve seen it.
Dash cam update. The governor general Peter Cosgrove is motoring home as we speak. In through the gates, up go the bollards.
Let’s call this one Tamworth cam.
The Deputy PM takes an important trip. #auspol #ausvotes https://t.co/4v0muZlu0E
— ABCcameramatt (@ABCcameramatt) May 8, 2016
The press conference quickly moved on to other issues.
Q: Can Labor win the election?
Bill Shorten:
We are united team. I acknowledge that we start this election as the underdog.
This election will be a matter of choices for the Australian people. There will be a referendum on jobs. It will be a referendum on keeping Medicare in public hands. It will be a referendum on the sort of schools we want to see our children educated in.
We are ready, we have positive plans for the future: jobs, schools, Medicare, renewable energy, a fair taxation system, also making sure that first home buyers compete equally in the housing market [against] property speculators.
We have been working hard on our policies .. I am very privileged to lead a united team.
Mr Turnbull’s team are definitely not united. They are pursuing a policy for Australians that will award big tax cuts to major corporations. They will provide tax cuts for people who earn $1m a year – a $17,000 tax cut. Yet at the same time, we see a working parent with two teenage kids who earns $65,000 a year losing family payments and other matters in excess of $4500. We will put people first.
Q: This is your first time leading an election campaign, do you have the discipline?
Bill Shorten:
Discipline is demonstrated in a united team.
Q: What about you personally?
Bill Shorten:
Discipline is also in our ideas and policy work that we have done.
I am looking forward to this election campaign. It will be a long election campaign but we can have a chance to outline policies for all Australians ..
We are definitely ready.
No new policy here, just some broad thematic positioning.
Shortly after Morrison was on Insiders, the Labor leader Bill Shorten and the shadow families minister Jenny Macklin held a press conference in Melbourne. It being Mother’s Day, Labor wanted to be out of the theme of paid parental leave.
Bill Shorten opened in this fashion.
This choice is very clear for Australian mums and Australian families. On one hand, you have Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberals proposing $50bn worth of tax cuts to large multinationals and you have got the Labor party stopping the cuts to paid parental leave.
The choice is clear, on paid parental leave, you can only trust us and today we are able to say on Mother’s Day to all Australian mothers, the Labor party will restore your paid parental leave.
For folks wanting a dash cam to keep track of every development, the prime minister is now back in Canberra, in the Lodge. He’ll pit stop there before heading out to see the governor-general. The news helicopters are buzzing above us, otherwise it’s strangely quiet for an election day, in our corridors at least.
Meanwhile, in cooler, wetter, climes.
"I said allegedly, Barrie"
There was more sparring between host and interviewer on superannuation, on Labor’s negative gearing policy, then the interview built up to a mini crescendo with a question dating back to Morrison’s time as immigration minister.
From gritted teeth to terse.
Q: This week the government has paid compensation to Save the Children, because they were wrongly accused of encouraging asylum seekers on Nauru to self harm. Is that a fair and reasonable outcome and is it now time to apologise?
Scott Morrison:
I set up the inquiry that led to these outcomes, and that’s why I set it up, so that we could get to the bottom of what was happening there. I drew no conclusions on the material presented to me at the time.
Q: Yes, you did. This is what you said, you accused them of being political activists, you said they made false claims.
Scott Morrison:
I did not say that.
Q: I have looked at the transcript. They ‘allegedly coached self-harm’.
Scott Morrison:
Allegedly.
Q: The ‘allegedly’ applied to just one allegation.
Scott Morrison:
I said allegedly, Barrie.
Q: There was no allegedly about them being politically activists and making false claims. Surely, you have paid compensation, that’s a concession of guilt, it’s time for an apology?
Scott Morrison:
Barrie, those evidences that were presented to me, I had investigated fully by a proper process. I did the job I had to do in that situation just as I am doing the job now as treasurer to ensure we have a strong, international economic plan that Australians can count on to ensure we transition from that investment phase of the mining boom to a broader based economy.
Updated
Speaking of Scott Morrison, the treasurer was the guest on the ABC’s Insiders program this morning. I think it’s fair to say that it wasn’t a brilliant interview.
There was a certain amount of gritted teeth during the section of the conversation where host Barrie Cassidy pressed Morrison on why the government didn’t release its ten year costings on the budget’s business tax cut given it was obvious they had them, despite telling journalists variously throughout the past week that they 1. Didn’t have them, or 2. Did have them, but they were built into the medium term budget projections, and therefore weren’t able to be itemised.
In the end, treasury just produced them.
Q: Why were you so coy about telling the Australian people the cost of that?
Scott Morrison:
Well, those figures were released on Friday. Bill Shorten had his speech on Thursday night. It’s appropriate for Treasury to be able to give the explanation around why you don’t put ten-year figures on line items in a budget. I mean, Penny Wong made that very clear they didn’t release ten-year costings on individual items in the budget. What you do is you take all your measures together and you put them in the underlying cash balance projection over the medium term which is what the prime minister referred to. So, yes, it does cost $48.2bn over the ten years to get there. It’s included in our underlying cash balance projections over the medium term. But what we saw from Bill Shorten this week was more than $100bn in new taxes announced in less than 30 minutes. That has to be some sort of record.
Q: You and the prime minister are accused of being tricky over this, partly because when asked about it by reporters you said it’s in the budget, look it up, when in fact it wasn’t [in the budget].
Scott Morrison:
Well, it was incorporated in the underlying cash projection.
Q: The figure wasn’t there, the $48bn figure was not there.
Scott Morrison:
Barrie it was included in the underlying cash balance medium term projection which is where those longer term estimates always are and the figures were released by treasury on Friday. What I want to know is what are the four year estimates of what – we are yet to see one four-year estimate from Bill Shorten in terms of what he’s doing.
Sticking with polls just for a moment there was a second poll this morning in which a slight majority of respondents “struggled to identify Scott Morrison in a line-up.” More than half, 52%.
The Daily Telegraph’s Samantha Maiden.
One in three Liberals, 33% could not identify Scott Morrison as the current treasurer.
But the news is even worse for his Labor opponent Chris Bowen. A whopping 78% are “uncommitted” when asked to name Labor’s treasury spokesman.
Welcome to election day
Good morning good people and welcome to election day and the beginning of the longest federal campaign since Lord knows when. It’s delightful to have your company on this, the night of nights for politics nerds, (confusingly scheduled during the day).
A short word on timings to help you plan your Sunday.
We expect the prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to take off from the Lodge to see the governor general at around 1pm today, and then return to parliament house for a press conference at around 2pm.
The Labor leader Bill Shorten has been on breakfast television, has held a press conference in Melbourne, and will be in Beaconsfield around 3pm this afternoon to mark the anniversary of the mine disaster in Tasmania, before returning to Canberra tonight.
The Greens leader Richard Di Natale will be in Newcastle around lunchtime. He is attending a coal protest in the city.
I’m launching Politics Live a bit early so we can catch up on events of the morning before we power on into the live coverage of election day. But first let’s snapshot today with polls and with numbers.
Polls
Let’s kick off with the first opinion poll of the campaign, which looks a lot like most other opinion polls of the past few weeks. The Galaxy poll published by the News Corp papers has the major parties neck-and-neck on 50/50. The Coalition starts the contest with a primary vote of 42%, which is three points lower than 2013. Labor’s primary vote in this poll is 36%, which is better than the party’s vote in 2013, but not enough for election victory. The Greens in Galaxy are polling at 11%.
The perception of the election contest being tight is not only useful for news outlets – look guys, we have an interesting story to tell you, isn’t that great – it is also beneficial for both major parties in different ways.
The tight contest perception might encourage the Coalition to maintain a bit of internal discipline, which has been a problem of late. Malcolm Turnbull might have his nose ahead but if these numbers are right he’s not far enough in front for any kind of complacency to creep into his operation. That’s not actually unhelpful as a perception.
As for Labor, Shorten can credibly claim underdog status, but he can also be seen by his own people to be within spitting distance of an upset victory. Those atmospherics help the Labor operation to go into the contest with their spirits up, which helps discipline and morale.
Numbers
Guardian Australia’s election numbers man Ben Raue has this to say on the mechanics of election victories in the 2016 contest.
- Seventy-six seats are needed for a majority in the House of Representatives.
- If the Coalition loses fourteen seats, they will lose their majority. If Labor gains nineteen seats, they will gain their own majority.
- If the number of seats changing hands falls somewhere in the middle, we will have a hung parliament, and government will be decided by the crossbench MPs.
- A uniform swing of 3.4% would see the Coalition lose its majority. A uniform swing of 4% would see Labor win a majority.
With that so noted, let’s amble on into Sunday morning with our calculators at the ready, our spirits high, and with morale bubbling like a fountain. Stand back people, my morale is spouting.
And more than morale spouting, Mike Bowers has gone out in waders and Gortex. He may be some time.
It's a wet wait for @TurnbullMalcolm at Yarralumla @murpharoo @GuardianAus #politicslive pic.twitter.com/NZpRPsDtdC
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) May 8, 2016
Today’s comments thread is wide open for your election day business. Magic Mike and I are up and about on the twits – he’s @mpbowers and I’m@murpharoo. If you speak Facebook you can join my daily forum here. And if you want a behind-the-scenes look at the day and the looming campaign, give Mike a follow on Instagram. You can find him here.
Stockpile the canned goods and keep your babies safely indoors, here comes election Sunday.
