Up north, they don't regard visiting politicians with any huge amount of reverence, as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull discovered in Darwin.
The local paper, the famously irreverent NT News, greeted his arrival with the headline "The circus is in town", complete with caricatures of the PM and opposition leader in clown outfits, though Bill Shorten was nowhere near Darwin.
The genesis of this was a bit of politicking the day before in which Liberal MP Natasha Griggs announced $15 million funding for a new PET scanner for Darwin hospital in order to gazump visiting Labor health spokeswoman Catherine King.
The NT News pointed out that both sides had long promised just this bit of technology to save local cancer patients having to travel south for crucial diagnostic testing.
"Yesterday they made clowns of themselves trying to one-up each other's promises before the PM arrives," the paper said. This was of course none of the PM's doing.
But Mr Turnbull copped a little more indignity when a local FM radio station kept him waiting on the phone for an interview while the announcer recited the winning lotto numbers.
The prime minister conducted a series of electioneering events in Darwin. Unlike in other campaign stops where the PM has appeared on his own, the local member, Ms Griggs, was included.
That started with a "politics in the pub" event, at which he sipped a beer and fielded mostly friendly questions.
On Tuesday morning, he met local cancer patients and heard why they needed a local PET scanner, and announced almost $30 million for a roads project to ease congestion in the Darwin CBD.
The main event was a visit to an Australian Border Force patrol boat Cape Jervis, moored at Darwin's commercial port - the very same port now leased to the Chinese-owned company Landbridge. Cape Jervis is actually parked at a section leased by the ABF.
Mr Turnbull inspected the vessel, commended the crew for their hard work, then fronted the media to slam Labor.
He said at the latest count 25 Labor candidates or backbenchers were unhappy with strong border protection policies, despite Mr Shorten's assurances that the opposition fully supported the government.
And they were just the tip of the iceberg, he said.
"They do not agree with turning the boats back and regardless of what they say before the election, we know from the experience of Kevin Rudd's government that they will not perform, that they will fail ... to be strong in Australia's interests," he said.
The NT has just two electorates, Lingiari, held by Labor veteran Warren Snowdon, and Solomon held by Ms Griggs. Neither could be regarded as safe.
