Crikey campaign scorecard: Labor attacks the Libs over Parakeelia

WHO WON THE DAY?

Bernard Keane, Crikey politics editor: Battle of the images yesterday: Shorten in high-vis talking about apprentices (including older apprentices), Turnbull playing talkshow host with school students. Hard to separate them, although the Coalition is making a meal of its handling of what increasingly looks like something faintly sordid about Parakeelia. Another drawn day in a campaign that so far isn’t shifting many votes.

John Connolly, founder of John Connolly and Partners public relations firm: Basically the election campaign has run out of puff but we have to endure two more weeks of high-vis vests, childcare visits, boring debates, accusations and counter accusations and worse, the most terrible election advertising ever seen from both sides. Bring back Singo. The problem is the punters are spin-savvy now. They get all the tricks. Too much West Wing and Secret City. They know the leaders’ schedule better than the leaders. All of this is good for the government. Might as well go with the devils …, etc. Don’t believe stuff like a big swing to the ALP in Western Australia. Do believe the attack on Nick Xenophon doesn’t hurt his chances. He will do well, probably in both houses. In this very boring TV series the ALP will be the loser. The government will lose eight seats and independents will rule the upper house. I prefer Secret City.

Paula Matthewson, political commentator and media adviser to John Howard: Despite the best efforts of seemingly self-appointed Coalition attack dog, the Treasurer Scott Morrison, yesterday went to Labor by default. Continuing the long-time election tradition of running attack ads that bear only a passing resemblance to the truth, Morrison held a press conference to launch one such ad decrying the apparently unseemly relationship between Australia’s two main progressive parties, Labor and the Greens. In past campaigns, this presser would have been held by the Liberal’s campaign director, particularly when Andrew Robb was in the role. But with questions swirling about the role of the Liberal Party machine and its wholly owned campaign database provider, Parakeelia, no doubt wiser heads counselled against the current campaign director and federal director of the Liberal Party, Tony Nutt, fronting the media to spruik the ad. Labor’s decision, announced by its leader Bill Shorten, to refer Parakeelia to the Auditor-General, suggests the opposition is confident that its own house is in order. Having unleashed the genie, they’d better hope it is. The government also took a hit yesterday when it emerged the head of NBN Co, Ziggy Switkowski, breached the caretaker convention to pen an article that defended his decision to call in the AFP to investigate leaks of confidential information from the government agency that proved embarrassing for the Government, and particularly the Prime Minister.

Jane Caro, author, social commentator and communications consultant: Scott Morrison was on the attack this morning on RN Breakfast. His main focus appeared to be the horror of a hung parliament with the ALP in alliance with The (dum dah dum dah dum) Greens! Unfortunately, all I got out of his exaggerated doomsaying was that LNP polling must be indicating this is a real possibility. Last night on 7.30 Malcolm was dealt a nasty blow by focus group members and Parakeelia and the NBN buzzing annoyingly around the LNP’s ears like mosquitoes after lights out. No wonder Bill just keeps on cheerfully trucking while keeping his voice low and his arguments reasonable. He won’t win enough seats to form government (no, not even with the help of The *cue scary music here* Greens) but it must be fun to watch the government on the run, with their volume, tellingly, turning up towards shrill.

CASH TRACKER

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The Coalition continues to make small promises on sport stadiums and beef expos while Labor makes a big education promise and offers a lifeline to steelmakers Arrium.

Coalition:

$3 million to the next Beef Australia expo to be held in 2018;
$6 million to upgrade Baseball Park in Perth; and
$10 million to help women re-enter the workforce through the Springboard program.

Labor:

$100 million to assist Whyalla steelmaker Arrium;
$43 million to build an overpass at the intersection of Roe Highway and Kalamunda Road in Perth’s east;
$68.6 million for a jobs package targeting areas with high unemployment called Local Jobs for Local People; and
$430 million for a network of hybrid education institutions which will have TAFEs, universities, industry and state governments collaborate across 10 trial locations.

CAMPAIGN DIARY

Malcolm Turnbull: The PM is in Sydney today, staying on message and focusing on innovation and jobs and growth at Qantas HQ.

“I believe Australians innovation, their courage, their imagination, their enterprise is utterly without limit. What we see around Australia today is the businesses that are creating the jobs and growth that are so key to our success.”

He will be facing some tough questions about the software company Parakeelia which receives taxpayer funds while also donating to the Liberal party. The Liberal party has said it would fully assist an investigation which Labor is calling for.

Bill Shorten: Shorten is today campaigning in South Australia. He is expected to announce a jobs package and will promise $100 million to prop up the steelmaker Arrium. He also seeking bipartisan support from Turnbull to assist the ailing company. At a press conference this morning in Adelaide he focused on the relationship between the Liberal party and the software company Parakeelia as well as on reports that Turnbull is under pressure to give Tony Abbott a ministry.

“Malcolm Turnbull leads a divided party and if he is re-elected on July 3, what will happen is that Tony Abbott will be back because Malcolm Turnbull has to appease the right-wing of his party.”

The Greens: Richard Di Natale is again having to defend himself over accusations that he underpaid au pairs who were looking after his children, after Labor’s employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor wrote to him requesting proof that he paid them the minimum wage. Di Natale said that the au pairs were paid appropriately and that “nothing brings the Coles and Woolworths of politics together like a bit of competition from outside their cozy duopoly.”

INDEPENDENT. ALWAYS.

Bob Katter put himself in the firing line yesterday after releasing a “wicked” campaign ad, which appeared to involve him shooting dead two representatives from the Liberal and Labor parties. The ad depicts the two men attempting to put up an “Australia for Sale” sign before Katter thwarts their efforts by adding “not” to the sign and shooting them (off camera) with a silver pistol. Coming just two days after the mass shooting in a gay club in Orlando, the ad has been heavily criticised as being insensitive and inflammatory. Bob Katter’s gay half-brother Carl Katter, who is Labor’s candidate for Higgins, said that the ad was highly inappropriate and showed a “total disregard for the loss of lives that we saw in Orlando recently”. Liberal Senator Barry O’Sullivan called on Katter to resign over the ad and Labor’s campaign spokesperson Penny Wong said she was uncomfortable with any campaign ad which made fun of violence. Katter said that he wasn’t aware of the Orlando shooting as he doesn’t watch TV or read the newspapers; he had not intended for the ad to be controversial and said it was meant as a humorous attack on “selling off Australia”.

“I think most people will enjoy the humour. I thought it was very funny, I must admit.”

LABOR OPENS THE FLOODGATES (SAYS THE DAILY TELE)

The Daily Telegraph‘s top story today, “Labor’s invite to thousands of illegals“, claims that a Labor government would give permanent residency 30,000 asylum seekers who arrived by boat while Labor was in government. The Australian repeated the claim in their story “Federal election 2016: Rudd-Gillard asylum-seekers to get visas“. Labor’s relevant policy actually states that Labor would abolish Temporary Protection Visas, which have kept these 30,000 people in limbo and “would commit to processing people as quickly as possible and placing those found to be genuine refugees on permanent protection visas”. As a Labor spokesperson told The Australian: “This is not new. Labor has made it very clear it will retain a joint policy of offshore processing and turnbacks. TPVs only apply to those already in Australia.” There was then perhaps a bit of hyperbole about the Tele‘s front page today, which included an image of a welcome mat.

ISENTIA DAILY LEADER INDEX

The PM and Opposition Leader were almost equals yesterday, with Turnbull getting a few more mentions on the traditional platforms and Shorten winning out on social media.

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SNIPING AND UNDERMINING

Malcolm Turnbull is reportedly under pressure from the hard right of his party to offer Tony Abbott a ministerial role. Tony Abbott has said publicly that he does not expect Turnbull to offer him a ministry and will not ask for one and Turnbull has said that he would not reshuffle his frontbench should he win the election. Despite this, the AFR has reported that a “leading conservative” MP told them that the PM is “going to have to” reach out to Abbott in order to keep good relations with the conservatives in the party.

Meanwhile, Anthony Albanese, who lost to Shorten in Labor’s 2013 leadership challenge despite winning strong support from the rank and file of the party, has spoke to the beer magazine Froth about his political future. When asked about his ambition to be prime minister he said: “I don’t think that’s about to happen in the short term.”

ZINGER OF THE DAY

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MALSPLAIN OF THE DAY

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QUIRK OF THE DAY

In march of this year Microsoft released an experimental AI twitter bot called Tay. Within 24 hours Tay was tweeting sexually explicit comments, denying the holocaust, and saying incredibly racist things. Let’s hope the same fate doesn’t await the ABC’s new Newsbot, a bot which will attempt to answer election-related questions on Twitter and Facebook. Given that the bot’s most common response to questions thus far is to simply link to an “in-depth guide to the parties’ major policies” we may be safe.