• Labor evidently feels it has a killer line with its ‘Coles and Woolies tax’ attack on the Liberals’ PPL levy. Candidates like David Bradbury are rolling it out in those outer-suburban electorates where the “cost of living” issue burns brightly. The Liberals were slow to react yesterday, with Tony Abbott actually confirming that it would push business costs up. His team should have known this would be a key Labor attack point and had a better response prepared. They need to counter this quickly.
  • Attempts by the Coalition and some of their media cheerleaders to exploit the Prime Minister’s unmarried, childless status will find their mark with a small number of voters who hold such matters to be critical in public policy. The problem is, they’ll mostly be rusted on Liberal or National voters. The rest of us will either find the issue without interest or be offended.
  • Julia Gillard is every bit as robotic as her predecessor in her capacity to hammer the same talking points regardless of questioning. Yesterday’s Launceston press conference, where journalists cranky about not being allowed to accompany Gillard on her hospital tour repeatedly asked her about the debate, and Gillard uttered the same response over and over again, was modern politics summed up perfectly. There’s a reason why both journalists and politicians are held in such low esteem in the community.
  • Labor has swung the focus to health this week, although they are cruelled somewhat by delivering all their big announcements earlier in the year at Kevin Rudd’s COAG health summit. Labor traditionally has a strong advantage on health — still does — but Tony Abbott’s canny mental health announcement prior to the election appropriately won universal praise. The Coalition is notionally hampered, because in effect it has no health spokesman, with Peter Dutton busy trying to keep his seat. Given Dutton’s aggressive demeanour, however, that may not be a bad thing for an issue that attracts particular concern from female voters.