David Penberthy: Don’t underestimate the dork. He may win
Scott Morrison wants to be seen as the economy-obsessed ‘dorky dad’ and Bill Shorten wants to be the fairness guy. Nobody mention past bloodshed and the election could be anyone’s, writes David Penberthy.
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Back in 2004 a photographer and I spent a relaxing couple of weeks driving through some of the prettiest parts of this great nation covering the federal election.
Armed with a map, an electoral pendulum and a restaurant guide, we selected towns on the basis that they were in marginal seats and promised good food.
Journalistically the exercise could not have been more simple, nor more illuminating. We approached 100 people at random every day for 10 days to ask them the simple questions: what do you think of John Howard and Mark Latham?
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Howard received an almost uniform description from a majority of voters. About a quarter were rusted-on Labor or Green supporters who either hated Howard or dismissed him.
The remaining three-quarters were conservatives, swinging voters, or politically disengaged, people who said they hated politics and voted only because it was compulsory.
The words this 75 per cent of respondents used constantly to describe John Howard was “all right”. In politics, being described as “all right” by three out of every four people is like winning a grand final.
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Conversely, the responses describing Latham ranged from committed Labor voters hailing him as exciting, a breath of fresh air, a fighter, inspirational, smart, the new generation to rusted-on Liberals calling him a dangerous lunatic.
The most telling responses regarding Latham came from undecided or swinging voters who were “not sure”. When pressed for a clearer answer, many used these same words: “Bit of a ratbag”.
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As the 2004 result demonstrated “all right” beats “bit of a ratbag” every time.
By my reckoning, about 20 per cent of Australians profess to loathe politics, not follow politics and to make up their minds as to who they will support just before polling day.
As our campaigns become more presidential, leaders’ character and style increase in importance and the little we know counts for a lot.
To that end, the May 18 election throws up curious factors, principally that in the minds of many Australians Scott Morrison is an unknown as leader, having been prime minister for only months.
Bill Shorten is a relative leadership veteran, having presided over the party since Kevin Rudd vanished after Labor’s drubbing in 2013.
Much has been made of Morrison’s goofy style: less of a prime minister than some dorky Dad who stumbled into the top job as per Stephen Bradbury. He is derided by Lefties as a hopeless nerd, facing jibes over everything from his baseball hats to his Borat impersonations and his Twitter post when he was watching Game of Thrones.
.@ScottMorrisonMP is a big ‘Game of Thrones’ fan and invited us along for tonight’s big episode #AUSVotes19 #auspol #GOT8 @Foxtel pic.twitter.com/n9mz7QOvSd
— Annelise Nielsen (@annelisenews) April 15, 2019
I doubt that perception will do him any harm in the ’burbs. There are plenty of Dads who revel in their dorkiness and plenty of Mums who find the quality likeable and reassuring. The Morrison haters should remember that John Howard was a five-term prime minister, but hardly a hip dude.
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Morrison might have a limited track record as PM but has spent the first week of the campaign talking about one thing only — the economy.
To apply the random vox pop test, the one thing politically disengaged voters might know about Morrison is that he was the guy who stopped the boats. This is Morrison’s dream scenario. He wants to be known as the dorky bloke who stopped the boats and is obsessed by the economy.
Shorten in contrast wants to be known as the fairness guy. He has no positive association with the economy, a point that was underscored on Tuesday when he stumbled terribly on three crucial areas: negative gearing, superannuation and the economic impact of his climate policies. Another day like that and he is in deep strife.
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In reality, Shorten does not want to engage on economics at all. He must slay Morrison on compassion. On that score he is well ahead when it comes to issues such as wages growth and the lavish lifestyles enjoyed by the big end of town.
Labor can hammer the Libs — rightly — over its long-held opposition to the banking royal commission. It can rightly claim to be pursuing a living wage determination by the Fair Work Commission that it is trying to lift up the living standards of the working poor — a fact further underscored by the attack on tax cuts for people on comfortable incomes in excess of $200,000. In the health space, Shorten’s cancer plans are again all about hammering his fairness credentials.
But for all this fairness, why has Shorten consistently languished in the preferred prime minister polls? My guess is that, unlike ScoMo, many voters have seen enough of Shorten as a factional player to be wary of his character and sincerity.
The leftist group GetUp! and the ALP itself has made much of those Coalition MPs who voted for the conservative Peter Dutton in last year’s leadership spill. If I were Labor, the last thing I would be doing was firing barbs at anyone about how people behave during leadership spills, because their bloke has got serious form. People know Shorten played a lead role in the 2010 Gillard coup over Rudd, then switched sides back to Rudd ahead of the 2013 poll.
Australians have no appetite for this indulgent nonsense. It’s the chief reason the Libs entered this campaign in such a mess. If enough Australians remember Shorten’s role from that period — and many of them already do — there’s a dorky bloke who might finish the campaign with a big grin on his face.
Originally published as David Penberthy: Don’t underestimate the dork. He may win
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