There’s something quite disingenuous about our federal election ‘campaign’ so far.
In fact, there are many disingenuous things - hard to avoid when you’re talking about politicians - but I’m going to focus on one: the fact that we refer to it as a ‘campaign’ at all.
When Malcolm Turnbull officially launched proceedings by calling the election, a lot of the media attention focused on the fact that it would be the longest official election campaign since the 1960’s.
While this is technically true, it’s actually kind of irrelevant.
When politicians and journalists talk about the ‘campaign’ they are most often referring to the period between Parliament being dissolved - when the election is called - and polling day.
While Malcolm Turnbull remains the Prime Minister, the government enters something called “caretaker mode” where no new policies or significant spending measures are announced.
Political leaders then pack themselves and their media entourages into buses and charter planes to tour the country, spruiking election policies in marginal seats.
But saying the campaign has only begun a couple of months before polling day is a misreading of how modern politics works.
Politicians are perpetually in campaign mode. I don’t know if there was every really a time in Australian politics where our leaders governed based on some sort of objective, “national interest”, but if they did those days are now long gone.
Everything politicians do, throughout the entire political cycle, is part of a campaign to build public support, translate that into votes and win elections.
“Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten like to proclaim that their tours of the marginal seats are authentic attempts to engage undecided voters but in reality they are ultra stage-managed pieces of political theatre.”
Policies to increase education and health funding, cut social security and introduce tax cuts are normally carefully calibrated to ensure that swing voters are looked after, and to ensure who face the burden of spending cuts are demographics unlikely to change their vote anyway.
When Malcolm Turnbull replaced Tony Abbott as Prime Minister, the primary reason for his elevation wasn’t a particular policy - it was polling results. It was a campaign driven move. Tony Abbott’s entire strategy between 2010 and 2013 was to run a negative, brutal campaign targeting the incumbent Labor government. The election campaign didn’t begin in September 2013 - it began the second Julia Gillard secured the numbers to form majority government.
The decisions made by the Turnbull government to embark on an ambitious new naval construction program were timed to help build support for the government in marginal South Australian seats. The election had yet to be called, but make no mistake – the campaign had well and truly begun.
There’s another dirty little secret of the modern election campaign. What gets reported by most journalists and what you are most likely to see on the nightly news is a sideshow. Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten like to proclaim that their tours of the marginal seats are authentic attempts to engage undecided voters but in reality they are ultra stage-managed pieces of political theatre.
Every stop-off the leaders make has been organised and vetted by a team of political staffers called ‘advancers’. It’s their job to make sure the reception the politicians receive is positive - usually by bussing in a load of the party faithful. Most of the time journalists on the campaign tour don’t even know where they are going or what policies will be launched, significantly undermining their ability to ask tough questions.
The whole exercise involves very little actual ‘campaigning’. It’s all about controlling the message and getting nice shots for the evening news. The real campaigning is far less glamorous but far more impactful in targeting swinging voters.
It’s done by party organisers and volunteers in cities, suburbs and regional centres across Australia. It’s not pretty and it’s very hard work, but it’s real, door-to-door campaigning. And more regularly it too doesn’t start with the official launch of the election campaign but occurs over the entire three-year political cycle.
It might be worth bearing this mind as we trudge into the fourth week of the official campaign but the 142nd week of the real one.
