Surrounded by yachts, Malcolm Turnbull made his pitch to retirees.
"We've come here to meet the people that Bill Shorten wants to rob," the prime minister said in picturesque Port Macquarie.
More than 3.6 million Aussies are 65 or older, and that number will keep growing as more baby boomers pass retirement age.
That's a lot of votes.
But right now Shorten isn't actively wooing those millions of retirees, many of whom are pensioners who will probably vote Labor regardless.
He's going after almost 16 million voting-age Australians who can't yet retire to a life of overseas cruises, golf, and long lunches.
"What we want to do is make sure that the government has enough money to pay for hospitals, to pay for education," Shorten told reporters.
"Our population is getting older and, whilst we grow older, we need health services more than ever."
The youth strategy worked for Labor in New Zealand, where Jacinda Ardern won an election in part because of her promise to make things fairer for young people.
Shorten's plan to end cash handouts for share investors is just one of his arguments to young and middle-aged Australians struggling to deal with a high-cost economy.
He's also going after negative gearing, which has allowed wealthy people to get significantly more wealthy at taxpayers' expense.
And he's targeting multinational companies which bring in huge revenue but use complex financial arrangements to avoid paying tax.
Meanwhile Turnbull stuck to his "trickle down economics" plan to cut corporate tax.
"We have to have a competitive company tax rate to attract investment, which will drive jobs," Turnbull said.
But younger Australians have lived through 25 years of uninterrupted economic growth, and watched dozens of multinationals set up shop in Australia despite the allegedly high tax rate.
At the same time they've seen their wages stagnate, job security shrivel, and the rise of the gig economy.
And at the banking royal commission they've heard bankers admit they screwed over mortgagees and didn't play by the rules.
"How can you justify a five per cent tax cut to the big banks when there's a royal commission into their misconduct?" Senator Derryn Hinch told Sky News.
Shorten is banking on a mood for change.
The ACTU this week set out ambitions to shift the economy towards letting the people who create value (the workers) enjoy more of the benefits (the capital).
Unions want industry-wide bargaining, more protections for casual workers, and a stronger industrial umpire.
They say flat wage growth is holding back the economy - and the head of the Reserve Bank agrees.
Maybe the mood for change among those 16 million voters will be enough to get Shorten into The Lodge.
Turnbull can cut through to his retiree base who have lived large off Howard-era welfare for 18 years, but how will he go with middle Australia?
Electricity prices are up. Gas prices are up. Private health insurance is up. School fees are up.
Swinging voters are sitting at home wondering how they will pay their bills, what a corporate tax cut will do for them and why should they care if some people lose a tax break.
Turnbull told the story of a couple in their 80s who would lose $3500 a year if Labor's dividend tax scheme was made law.
"Do you know what they said they'd have to do? Cancel their private health insurance," he told reporters.
Eyebrows raised around Australia.
Families have been going without private health insurance for years, better sorry than safe when they count the cost.
And the federal government has some responsibility for private health premiums, which have risen dramatically in the past decade.
Turnbull's government has been generally pragmatic, and it might be time for him to use that pragmatism once again.
If the mood for change is there, he can make some changes himself rather than let Labor do it.
Because you don't need to be a wealthy retiree to understand 16 million beats 3.6 million, and a Shorten government will have a mandate to make the tax changes it believes people want.
