Australia goes to the polls on Saturday after the longest federal election campaign since 1969.
It started scrappily, with a handful of disendorsements and minor gaffes from low-profile candidates.
But it heated up quickly, with federal police raids of Labor offices. It then turned nasty, with the Coalition and Labor ramping up scare campaigns to inflict as much damage as possible on their opponents.
Here were some of the key moments. What a joy.
8 May: The campaign starts on Sunday 8 May, when Malcolm Turnbull visits the governor general’s residence to ask for a double dissolution election on 2 July.
11 May: Within three days, Labor says it will disendorse its candidate for Fremantle in WA, unionist Chris Brown, after it was revealed he had failed to disclose criminal convictions from the 1980s.
16 May: Five days later, the Liberal party’s own candidate for Fremantle, Sherry Sufi, was thrust into the national spotlight after it was revealed he’d incorrectly described his work experience on his application for endorsement by the Liberal party. He was noticeably absent from a press conference that morning with Malcolm Turnbull who had made a flying visit to Perth. He resigned as a candidate a week later.
17 May: The next day, Labor frontbencher and member for Batman in Victoria, David Feeney, was revealed to have an undeclared $2.3m property. He also said he didn’t know if the property was negatively geared, but he later admitted it was.
NBN raids – 19 May: The federal police execute two search warrants in Melbourne over allegations of unauthorised leaking of confidential national broadband network documents. One office raided belongs to Labor’s communications spokesman, Stephen Conroy.
The “spend-o-meter” – 20 May: Bill Shorten makes a throwaway comment at a town hall event in Woy Woy, NSW, about adding a million dollars to the “spend-o-meter” to pay for an intersection upgrade in the area. It was a reference to the daily “spend-o-meter” column in the Australian newspaper that has been tracking election commitments, but next morning the Coalition was using it to attack Shorten’s attitude towards spending. They repeated the attack for the rest of the campaign.
The “$67bn budget black hole” – 24 May: The treasurer, Scott Morrison, and the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, make a brazen announcement, accusing Labor of having a $67bn budget “black hole.” But they have to admit, almost immediately, that the black hole is “at least $32bn and as much as $67bn.” The press conference becomes a trainwreck.
25 May: Embattled Labor frontbencher David Feeney, still recovering from his negative-gearing debacle a week earlier, sits for an interview with Sky News, and it quickly unravels. He starts the interview by admitting that his failure to register his $2.3m property had been the biggest “own goal” of the election campaign. But then he trips up again, failing to have any idea about Labor’s position on the $4.5bn schoolkids’ bonus.
“The … well … we … in terms – the baby bonus?” he says. “Well I – you’d have to refer to our relevant shadow. I’ve been a little … ah … distracted over the last few days.”
He then accidentally leaves behind in the studio a confidential document containing Labor “talking points”.
Labor staffers later tell journalists that he’s been locked away for the rest of the campaign.
26 May: Spooked by the Coalition’s accusations two days earlier of a $67bn black hole, Labor says it will drop its support for the schoolkids’ bonus. It also says it will not reverse the government’s changes to the pension assets test. The move shaves $8bn off Labor’s spending commitments overnight.
“Flushed out” – A few hours later, Morrison and Cormann hold a press conference declaring that their “$67bn black hole” accusation had worked because it had “flushed out” the truth from Labor. Morrison admits his claim of a $67bn black hole was merely a tactic.
“I said it was up to $67bn,” Morrison said.
“I’m not making an estimate now other than to say it’s up to $67bn … our intent was very clear here and that was to flush out Labor from walking both sides of the street.”
28 May: The NBN chairman, Ziggy Switkowski, writes an opinion piece, published in Fairfax Media, defending his decision to ask the federal police to investigate leaks of NBN documents. He makes no apologies for calling in the feds. Labor officially complains to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet that Switkowski’s piece breaks the caretaker conventions.
28 May: The Liberal’s candidate for the Victorian seat of McEwen, Chris Jermyn, tries to gatecrash one of Bill Shorten’s campaign events in Melbourne but when reporters ask him about the details of the Coalition’s health policies he fails to answer them. He then declares his hatred for journalists and retreats hastily.
29 May: The National Press Club holds the second leaders’ debate. The Guardian’s Mike Bowers takes a photo of a bored Laura Tingle from the Australian Financial Review. It sums up the nation’s feelings.
8 June: Fairfax Media breaks the story that nearly all Liberal MPs pay a company, called Parakeelia Pty Ltd, $2,500 a year to use “Feedback” software, with money understood to come from their taxpayer-funded office allowances. The company also donated $500,000 to the federal Liberal division last financial year, making it the party’s second-biggest single source of funds. Parakeelia is also controlled by Liberal party bosses.
9 June: Cabinet secretary Arthur Sinodinos tells Sky News he doesn’t know if taxpayer funds have been paid to Parakeelia, which in turn transferred $500,000 to the Coalition.
The Greens’ lower house campaign suffers a major blow – 12 June: The Liberal party strikes a deal with Labor to ensure it will get Labor preferences in three key rural seats so it can fend off threats from Nationals candidates. In return, the Liberal party says it will preference Labor ahead of the Greens in key inner-city seats. The deal is a huge blow to the Greens’ lower house campaign, because the Greens were relying on getting Liberal preferences in inner-city Melbourne and Sydney seats to beat their Labor rivals.
13 June: A day after the Liberal-Labor preference deal is announced, the Greens say they will preference the Labor party ahead of the Liberal and National parties in 139 of the 150 electorates across the country, including in all marginal seats. They’ll also preference Labor in every Senate seat. They say local branches in the remaining 11 lower house seats will issue open how-to-vote cards.
15 June: Fairfax reports that Ziggy Switkowski, the NBN chairman, wilfully breached caretaker conventions during the election campaign, against the direct advice of the nation’s top public servant, by writing his opinion piece for Fairfax in which he made no apologies for calling in the federal police to raid Labor offices in May.
19 June: The Labor party’s campaign launch. Shorten insists that Turnbull is trying to private Medicare by stealth, signalling Labor will double down on its Medicare scare campaign.
Malcolm Turnbull later rubbishes the claim, promising Medicare will always stay in public hands. Turnbull ramps up Coalition claims that a Labor government would see people smugglers resume efforts to bring asylum seekers to Australia.
Brexit – 24 June: Britain votes to leave the European Union, sending shockwaves through political and economic circles. Within days, the Coalition starts warning voters that only the Coalition could provide stability in government.
26 June: Labor releases its budget costings, showing a deficit worth $16bn more than the Coalition’s over the next four years. The Coalition seizes on the announcement, saying it proves Labor wants to tax and spend more and doesn’t care about the deficit. It’s a key moment in the campaign.
The start of the last week – 27 June: The Coalition shifts ahead of Labor in the latest Newspoll, for the first time in the campaign. The Coalition is reported to be ahead at 51% over Labor’s 49% on a two-party preferred basis. Its primary vote rises to a 14-week high, up two points to 43%, while Labor’s primary vote remains unchanged at 36%.
28 June: The Coalition promises to collect an extra $2bn over the next four years by cracking down on welfare and pension recipients. The treasurer, Scott Morrison, says the money it collects will be used to offset the extra $1.2bn in election spending it has announced over the past few weeks for things such as tennis courts, CCTV cameras and community grants – principally in Liberal and National electorates.
In the final week, Turnbull’s argument that a plebiscite on same-sex marriage will “sail through” parliament looks increasingly disingenuous, as a growing number of ministers in his party say they will vote “no” in a free vote in parliament.
30 June: Turnbull’s speech at the National Press Club, two days before the election. After a bitter eight-week campaign, he tries to consolidate his political position and remake the claim that he’s a leader above partisan politics. He says he thinks voters want the parliament to “offload the ideology, to end the juvenile theatrics and gotcha moments, to drop the personality politics.”
“They want our focus to be on issues that matter to them – and an end to division for division’s sake,” he says.
