Matthew Abraham: The salvo had strong echoes the opening shot of the stunning Kevin ’07 federal election

Peter Malinauskas’s historic run to the Premier’s office began with an echo of the stunning Kevin 07 campaign, and then it got worse for the Liberals, writes Matthew Abraham.

‘I am a husband, a father of three, a weekend gardener, a pretty average footy player …”. Unless you’ve been living on the dark side of the moon for the past four weeks, you know what comes next.

“ … and leader of the South Australian Labor Party. Hi, I’m Peter Malinauskas”.

I know first-time 18-year-old voters at this election who can recite that script, word perfect. It’s like a spoken meme, spreading faster on social media platforms than Covid-19 on a crowded dance floor.

The popular view is that the Labor leader’s election campaign took off with a blast when he stripped down to his lolly bags and plunged into the shallow end at the Adelaide Aquatic Centre on the February 11. That was a full week before the start of the “proper” election campaign.

But Labor’s “proper” election campaign started with the “Hi, I’m Peter” video a good three weeks before his poolside strip. Labor spent big and saturated prime-time TV with the commercial – day after day, night after night – during the Australian Open tennis.

Incoming Premier Peter Malinauskas with his daughter Eliza and the seat of Adelaide Labor candidate Lucy Hood with her son Ned at the Adelaide Aquatic Centre in North Adelaide. Picture: Brenton Edwards

If the Liberals didn’t see Labor’s version of a Stinger anti-tank missile heading straight at them from the very first “Hi, I’m Peter”, you just have to wonder what they were thinking.

Maybe they thought it was funny that Malinauskas felt he had to introduce himself to voters after four years as Opposition Leader and years before that as head of the powerful “shoppies” union.

The salvo had strong echoes of Kevin Rudd’s opening shot in his stunning Kevin ’07 federal election win where he launched his campaign with “My name’s Kevin. I’m from Queensland, I’m here to help.”

No doubt drained after two years of keeping South Australians safe from the worst of the Covid pandemic, Premier Steven Marshall had the misfortune of being pitted against an Opposition Leader who is super fit, driven and incredibly marketable.

Former Labor premier Jay Weatherill, who recruited Malinauskas into parliament from the “shoppies”, told me during the week that when he first saw the TV vision of the Labor leader poolside, he knew he was looking at what they call in politics “the complete package”.

“He just looks like a candidate designed in a laboratory,” he said laughing, and he wasn’t talking about Dr Frankenstein’s laboratory.

Armchair generals observing Russia’s vicious but unexpectedly slow campaign in Ukraine refer to the apparent failure to deploy what they call a “combined arms” strategy – different elements of military power such as tanks, infantry and aircraft deployed simultaneously and in complementary fashion.

Former South Australia premier Jay Weatherill with South new Premier Peter Malinauskas on Mr Weatherill’s last day in parliament. Picture: Sam Wundke

Transfer that strategy to the blessedly peaceful political contest in SA, and we’ve seen Labor deploy a ruthless combined arms strategy against the Liberals, rolling out its campaign on multiple fronts, all meshing seamlessly.

They say if you’re talking about your main policy on day one, and still talking about it on day 30, you’ve got a winning election campaign. Labor started the campaign promising to fix ambulance-ramping at our hospitals, and that’s what everyone was talking about on day 30.

At 15 minutes to midnight on Friday, on election eve, after a big day on the hustings, Malinauskas should have been tucked in bed. But on the way home, he stopped at the RAH, found a line of ramped ambulances, and tweeted videos of himself talking to the ambos.

The “Ash the ambo” ads, run by the ambulance union, were simply devastating. Marshall had nothing in his armoury to fire back.

Malinauskas now needs to update his video. “I’m a husband, a father of three, a weekend gardener, a pretty average footy player … and Premier of South Australia.”