In declaring 2015 to be a "year of ideas", Bill Shorten has raised expectations for a burst of ALP policy activism. In reality, the most talked-about idea in today's Labor Party has nothing to do with public policy. It's a new approach to election campaigning.

Traditionally, as Australia's party of reform, Labor has gone to the polls seeking a more substantial mandate for change than the Coalition. In the 1990s, Paul Keating depicted it as a contest between "enlargers" and "straighteners".