In a nutshell
Both leaders went regional on Tuesday, with Bill Shorten campaigning in Geelong in Victoria and Scott Morrison heading to Albury before crossing the river to Wodonga.
An egg stole the limelight when a protester tried to crack one on the prime ministerial noggin, but the attempt failed and the young woman was charged with assault.
The incident overshadowed a “sconversation” at a meeting of the Country Women’s Association in Albury, where Morrison was announcing the government’s plans for mobile blackspot eradication and funding for regional study hubs. But most importantly, he was trying to rally support from the CWA.
“The CWA is our largest women’s organisation in the country today; 8,000 members here in New South Wales, 370 local branches – that’s an army,” Morrison told the meeting.
Morrison will need all the help he can get if he is going to hang on to the seat of Farrer, which is held by the Liberals’ Sussan Ley. As Guardian Australia’s Gabrielle Chan has reported, there is an uprising in the electorate over the issue of water management which threatens to unseat Ley, despite her healthy 20% margin.
Morrison used the failed egging to denounce thuggery, including within the union movement, while Shorten said that anything approaching violence was unacceptable.
The Reserve Bank’s interest rate decision played into the election campaign, with Shorten suggesting the prospect of a rate cut showed that the economy was “wallowing in mediocrity”. But the RBA ended up leaving rates on hold, allowing Morrison to dodge that particular bullet.
The opposition leader was campaigning in quasi-sandbag territory, visiting Waurn Ponds in the Victorian seat of Corangamite. While the sitting MP is Liberal Sarah Henderson, a redistribution has put the seat on Labor’s side of the ledger and so it is now seen as Shorten’s to lose.
Shorten was campaigning on health and also had some strong words on the need for voters to choose Labor over independent candidates, warning of more chaos if minor parties held the balance of power.
“Let’s not have three more years of minorities controlling the Senate,” Shorten said.
The call comes as Tuesday’s Essential poll showed the primary vote for both major parties stubbornly low, with Labor on 34% and the Coalition on 38%.
Elsewhere on the trail
In the Northern Territory, the Greens were under fire for their candidate George Hanna sharing a meme that called the Liberals’ indigenous candidate Jacinta Price a “coconut” – an insult directed at indigenous people deemed to be “white on the inside”. The Nationals’ Matt Canavan described the remarks as evidence of the “sewer of social media” seeping into the real world – sad but true.
Price is running for the seat of Lingiari, held by the Labor party’s Warren Snowdon on an 8.2% margin.
The big picture
I think we can all agree that scones are a winner – especially those made by the Country Women’s Association.
Required reading
Katharine Murphy has been pondering a key question: is this election going to mirror the NSW state election, or the Victorian state election? The former saw the Liberals hang on against the odds, while the latter was a Labor landslide. With only 11 days to go, this will help you make sense of the polls and the shape of the campaign thus far.
This piece from the ABC charts the history of the minor party in Australia, going back to 1948 when Ben Chifley amended the Australian Electoral Act. And in another incident of fake news, the Chinese WeChat community has been hit with a flurry of activity targeting Labor on issues such as Safe Schools, taxes, asylum seekers and the economy.
Tweet of the day
No keys to the lodge. Ever. Doubt that will kill off the cliché, however.
Can confirm from many conversations this morning that the Prime Minister of the day is actually NEVER given keys to The Lodge.
— rob harris (@rharris334) May 7, 2019
What next
The two leaders will be back in the capital on Wednesday for the final leaders’ debate at the National Press Club at 7.30pm. This will be the last time the leaders go head to head before the 18 May election, and the debate will be shown live on the ABC.
