Trench warfare
This campaign is starting to feel like trench warfare - a drawn-out stalemate in which neither side is gaining nor conceding much ground. The latest poll shows Labor with an election-winning lead of 10 points - which has pretty much been the same since the beginning of the campaign and the start of the year.
Already, the Howard government has fired off much of its ammunition: the mighty howitzer of on the first full day of campaigning; and big ticket spending promises, like much-needed new infrastructure projects.
It has also relentlessly targeted Kevin Rudd and his shadow cabinet colleagues. But like an artillery unit struggling to find its range, it has yet to register to a wounding direct hit. Mr Howard is usually something of an ace hit when it comes to sizing up his enemies and identifying their points of vulnerability. But Mr Rudd seems to be coated with both Kevlar and Teflon: bullets seem to ricochet off, mud doesn't seem to stick.
The propaganda campaign has so far failed. At a time when the Reserve Bank of Australia was clearly going to for the first during ever during a an election campaign in fear that the booming economy is overheating, which bright spark came up with the slogan "go for growth"? It simply implies that more rate hikes are in the offing. Talk about emphasising the "mess" in "message".
The government's advertising also looks stale and ineffectual. The "learner plate" advertisements might have worked on the former Labor leader Mark Latham, whom many voters considered erratic and untrustworthy, but Kevin Rudd looks and sounds too learned for that tactic to work. And so often have television viewers been bombarded with negative ads claiming that 70% of the Labor front bench is either a trade union official or a trade union member, they have lost the "fear factor" - if, indeed, they ever had it.
As for the campaign events, they look dreary and unimaginative. Mr Howard visits a shopping centre, an old age peoples' club or a small business then answers reporters' questions stood in front of the same pale-blue backdrop, emblazoned with the same slogan - Go For Growth. Australia has some of the most stunning visual backdrops in the free world. There are photo opportunities in abundance. But only once during this entire campaign - when Mr Rudd did his in a glass-bottomed boat during a visit to the Greet Barrier Reef - has either side sought to profit from them.
For the Liberal Party, precious days have been lost on trivialities, such as arguing over the semantic difference between saying sorry and apologising. And at times, the logistics unit has looked hapless.
Who, for instance, scheduled an important health announcement in Melbourne on the morning that the Health Minister, Tony Abbott, was supposed to be in Canberra for a televised debate? Almost inevitably, he arrived over 30 minutes late, and then compounded his time-keeping lapse with a verbal one: swearing in front of the cameras when his opposite number, Nicola Roxon, complained about his punctuality. Another rash of unhelpful headlines. Another day lost.
The of the Coalition campaign, which has just taken place in Brisbane, sought to retool, refocus and revive the flagging crusade. There were modern-sounding new policies on child care, education and housing affordability. And this was by far the glitziest and best stage-managed event of the campaign so far.
For those interested in the cosmetics of politics, it was interesting to note the seating plan at the auditorium in Brisbane, which indicated who the party strategists wanted the cameras to focus on. The telegenic Education Minister Julie Bishop and Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough obviously focus group well. Tony Abbott seemingly does not.
Still, for all its upbeat music and broad smiles, the whole event had the feel of another fruitless "over the top", with Field Marshall Howard ultimately sounding a rather weary battle cry that Australia would be gambling with prosperity if it elected a Labor government - one with a deficit of expertise and experience and surplus of trade unionists.
Given all this, Remembrance Sunday came at a particularly unhelpful moment in the campaign. Not only would the Liberal high command have preferred apparently to stage its official campaign launch this past Sunday, but the visuals were unavoidably unhelpful. A bugler playing the Last Post? A musical coda perhaps for Mr Howard's prime ministership?
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So, the campaign launch and Howard immediately makes it obvious he's out to try and buy us.
Couple of nice expressions in this piece Nick, like the booming economy overheating (like a Holden Statesman) and especially like the pairing of the "Go For Growth" slogan with the Reserve Bank raising interest rates for the first time ever during an election campaign. They should have named it "Go For Broke"
Nick I am feeling very sorry for you having to cover this the most boring & drawn out election campaign ever. I bet you wish you were back in India were at least there were fireworks!(sorry to hear of your bald spot though).I am wishing it was over and our media would report more colourful world news like the fight at the Ibero-American summit. So much more interesting!!.Whats your bet on the next most exciting elections in the world?Russia? I bet if the Military Junta in Burma suddenly said 'we're stepping down so fresh elections can be called'tomorrow you wouldn't necessarily want to hang around here. That really would be interesting.Anyway good luck with it all maybe something spectacular will happen to round it all off like Oh I don't know... both sides admitting they're making it up as they go along.Otherwise Pakistan will start to look like a good option.
Howard knows only fear and smear, and he's pulling both those levers madly. But like Dorothy, many Australians are peeking behind the curtain and realise it's all a big con. Roll on the election, and the end of this Wizard of Oz.
I don't know much about UK politics so I'm hoping that you can shed some light: How come the Labour Party appear to be faintly losing this election even though they have such a huge lead? Surely the technology of being Labour and winning already exists in the UK - so how come they haven't downloaded the 'How to beat an incumbent conservative government' pack from the UK Labour Party website?
There is so much anger in this country about the lies Howard has told over the years - no one has brought up the children overboard scandal again - and with workchoices and rising house prices. How can the Labour Party lose? And yet, they are definitely not winning.
Hi.
I agree, we are in the middle of a VERY boring election campaign, but...
there are some of us, mostly middle class, educated late 20 somethings who are very excited.
We have endured what we believe to be a decade (and some) of the most amoral, unscrupulous and cynical government this country has every seen. We believe mr howard a bad, bad man and as for the rest of his government they ressemble the cast of a Boris Karloff film.
True, Rudd is fairly boring, but his hero is friedrich bonhoeffer, a principled and inspiring man.
Gone are the days of intersting politics in Australia. It is a conservative, xenophobic and inward looking country. We have very little to offer the rest of the world (except minerals) and therefor ask what the government can do for us (interest rates, housing prices, snore...)
I'm going to live in France where everything's stuffed, but at least people care.
I do apologise, that should have been dietrich, not friedrich beonhoffer (who was a famous chemist)...
my bad
Stunning backdrops? Well it may look pretty but its hardly that stunning when it’s just up the road. Surely there’s not that much profit to be made.
It doesn't matter whether it's Australia or anywhere else, voters all want the same thing: the juvenile fantasy that whomever they vote for will bring them more money for less work, and the illusion that war, hunger, and economic, and ecological disasters are something that only happen to other people.