Matt Smith: Labor and Bill Shorten are leaving nothing to chance

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Labor are taking no chances. Even an anthem is off the table — as he walked into Sunday’s national Labor conference, the music had no lyrics. “Wrapped in cotton wool”, one person put it, writes Matt Smith.

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As Opposition leader Bill Shorten made his way through a crowd of true believers, most got a handshake. A few got a hug.

Booming over the Adelaide Convention Centre was an upbeat keyboard-driven soundtrack.

What was telling was that there were no lyrics.

No Holy Grail by Hunters and Collectors.

No Simply the Best.

No I’m the Man adopted by Steven Marshall in the lead up to his bid for South Australian premier.

Certainly none of Fatman Scoop’s Be Faithful that left Prime Minister Scott Morrison red-faced in September.

It might seem like nothing.

But it highlighted the care the Labor machine are taking to protect their leader - even a random dodgy lyric could take the focus off what their leader wanted to say.

“Wrapping him in cotton wool”, one delegate mentioned privately.

In six months Mr Shorten is expected to be the Prime Minister of Australia.

But the party is leaving nothing to chance.

Of course within minutes the protection racket was shown to be far from bulletproof with protesters storming the stage.

Mr Shorten was diplomatic and measured in his response - much as he was a day earlier when a media event was gatecrashed by protesters at the Adelaide City Markets.

The Opposition leader would argue he honed his diplomacy skills as a unionist - a badge of honour in the room highlighted by the huge applause at the mention of McManus and Ged Kearney.

In the past it is the negotiating skills of unionists that have defined these conferences.

There is always plenty of work done behind the scenes complemented with plenty of muscle flexing and flying the flag on the conference floor.

There is still plenty of opportunity for that during the three-day conference.

Robust debate is expected on Monday when the issue of boat turnbacks and asylum seekers are discussed.

But as day one showed Mr Shorten and his team aimed to keep the controversy to a bare minimum and will be aiming to run as tight a ship as possible.