Tim Gartrell uses same tactics for Kevin 07 to campaign for Yes vote

THE architect of the campaign that gave us Kevin Rudd is the mastermind of the Vote Yes strategy — and he has vowed to keep up the controversial tactics to win over the nation to same-sex marriage.

Tim Gartrell’s campaign targets 10 per cent of Australians who are possibly undecided or could be classified as “soft yes” voters. Picture: David Swift.

• Yes vote losing ground in divisive marriage equality fight

THE architect of the campaign that gave us Kevin Rudd is the mastermind of the Vote Yes strategy — and he has vowed to keep up the controversial tactics to win over the nation to same-sex marriage.

Former ALP boss Tim Gartrell, credited with the groundbreaking Kevin 07 campaign, yesterday said “we are going to stick to our guns” despite polls trending against the movement and in the face of growing frustration over strategies like bombarding voters with text messages.

“We’re going to keep going, heads-down and stick the course,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

Tim Gartrell is the campaign director of the Marriage Equality Campaign. Picture: David Swift.

“We’re staying on strategy and I can tell you it’s working. I’ve been on a lot of campaigns and I know when things are working and I know when they’re not — and this is working.”

READ MORE: Women kiss on stage in protest at No event

Mr Gartrell said the strategy, since he started in mid-August, has been to “turbocharge” the operation.

He drove the successful Kevin 07 campaign, but has not always been a winner.

The man behind Kevin Rudd’s Kevin 07 campaign is back.

In 2004, he was behind the failed bid for Mark Latham to become prime minister. While polls suggest the same-sex marriage campaign style may have put voters off, Mr Gartrell says it’s working.

“The targets we’ve had have been smashed,” he said. “We were hoping to place half a million targeted phone calls by the end of the process. The volunteers teams have already done 600,000 and we’ve doorknocked 100,000 homes.”

In 2004, he was behind the failed bid for Mark Latham’s shot at the Lodge. Picture: Hollie Adams / The Australian

The campaigner is borrowing many of the same tactics from the Rudd push.

However, Newspoll data shows that since the start of the campaign support for marriage equality has fallen from 63 to 57 in one month, while the No campaign’s support grew from 30 to 34 per cent.

Mr Gartrell said he does not believe there is more negative sentiment towards the Yes campaign than there is with any other political campaign, and said the text message had as many positive responses as it did negative ones.

“Once you’re a few weeks into it you’re going to get people say ‘I’m sick of your TV ads’,” Mr Gartrell told The Daily Telegraph.

Tim Gartrell’s campaign included a text message sent to targeted users in favour of the Yes vote.

“I think the published polls show that things have tightened but have stabilised and a clear majority believe in this.”

Mr Gartrell said his primary target until the campaign ends on November 7 is the 10 per cent of Australians who are possibly undecided or “soft yes” voter.

Former prime minister Paul Keating has eviscerated Mr Gartrell in interviews as one of the “proven unsuccessful people around who are frightened of their own shadow and won’t get out of bed in the morning unless they’ve had a focus group report to tell them which side of bed to get out.”

But Mr Gartrell has since been credited as the mastermind behind Mr Rudd’s 2007 election victory, devising a strategy called “The 10 Steps To Victory” to defeat Liberal heavyweight John Howard.

READ MORE: Andrew Johns’ brilliant marriage equality Instagram post

Many of the techniques from Kevin ’07 are remarkably similar to those being used in the same-sex marriage campaign: appealing to the young generation to deliver victory; a bright, colourful strategy; ramming home a single message; a refusal to pursue negative techniques; and reliance on social media.

The Equality Campaign’s strategy has also included hiring crisis-management firm Newgate Communication’s research arm, Newgate Research, to do polling — the firm that employs the woman who devised Bill Shorten’s Medicare campaign.

Erinn Swan, the daughter of Labor’s Wayne Swan, is a senior consultant at Newgate.

Erinn Swan with proud dad, former treasurer Wayne Swan when she was married in 2013.

During the 2016 federal election she was head of digital for the ALP and devised the controversial Medicare campaign which culminated in an election eve mass text message.

Ms Swan said her father has had no involvement in the campaign for same-sex marriage.