Mark Kenny: The stakes are high so Australians should brace for an ugly, bumpy ride this election

Like a rabble of school kids, Australia’s political hopefuls have been jostling for front position long before the train finally pulled into the station.

Like a rabble of school kids, Australia’s political hopefuls have been jostling for front position long before the train finally pulled into the station.

Now, as the 2019 Express picks up speed again, what can the rest of us passengers expect?

Well, more jostling, some coarse language, way too much baggage and, as always, not enough seats to go around.

Thought you’d just sit quietly, maybe read your paper? Sorry.

Brace yourself for a raucous, frustrating commute on a train which has already made unscheduled stops at Abbottschurch and the exclusive Turnbull Junction, before taking the hastily constructed Dutton bypass through outer-suburban Morrisontown (speed restricted) on the way to where… Shortening Green?

Yikes. The scenic route this is not.

Weary commuters will be wondering what’s worse, the journey or the destination?

No election since 2007 has featured such a pungent cocktail of pre-election conditions: a tired underdog government racked by past disunity; a palpable sense of impatience among grumpy voters; and, a sharp future-versus-past contrast between the two parties.

The government is selectively running on its record of budget repair and the (still unfulfilled) promise of a growth dividend from a strong economy in the form of higher wages and future tax cuts.

The hopeful Labor alternative however, is emphasising a redistributive agenda in the name of restoring fairness while promoting future-focused ideas aimed at firing the voters’ imaginations.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaking to reporters after visiting the Govenor General to call an election for May 18, 2019

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten speaks at a press conference in NSW on Wednesday.

It’s a stronger economy versus a stronger role for government.

But that’s just the positive stuff.

The harsh reality is that the heavy lifting over the next five weeks will be done by the negative end of the political messaging caper.

Australians will get a crash-course in the dark arts with attack ads peddling exaggerations, deliberate misrepresentations, and yes, straight out lies.

Why? Because the stakes are huge. Think about it.

Whatever happens, Bill Shorten will not be opposition leader after May 18, and neither will Scott Morrison, who probably won’t be prime minister either, on the current numbers.

Ominously, neither man has anything to lose – it is, to borrow from Paul Keating, “one shot in the locker” time. Go hard or go home.

Expect the Coalition to go after Shorten personally, perhaps dredging up issues and associations of his past, and repeatedly painting him as a numbers man – a functionary of a conniving union/factional culture.

The Coalition views him as Labor’s Achilles Heel.

But they do not underestimate him either. Mr Morrison’s boosters acknowledge that the government was ‘out-politicked’ by Shorten in 2016 and say Turnbull survived only because he started so far ahead.

Morrison, they insist, is as politically cunning as Shorten and plans to take the fight right up to the Labor leader.

What about Labor? Think its planning to play nice? Hardly.

Its entrenched lead in the polls over the past three years stems primarily from the extraordinary disunity of the cascading Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison iterations. Labor strategists would be foolish to let voters forget these divisions just because Morrison is attempting to paper them over.

Conventional wisdom has it that this election will be decided in three states.

In descending order of importance, these are Queensland, Victoria, and Western Australia.

In Queensland, where the Liberals’ campaign headquarters will be located, half a dozen seats could fall if a pro-Labor swing is on, meaning that by itself the Sunshine State could determine the ball game.

But it is also possible that there’ll be losses and gains against the broader trend.

A seat such as Herbert for example, could easily return to the LNP.

Victoria has a few Liberal seats regarded as likely Labor gains (thanks to an increasingly progressive mood and a favourable redistribution).

Among these are Dunkley, Corangamite, Chisholm, Deakin and Latrobe.

In the West, Labor is eyeing Pearce, Stirling, and Hasluck, while down south in Tasmania, the Coalition is working hard to break the Labor monopoly by snagging Braddon, Lyons, or Bass.

From here anything could happen. It promises to be a rowdy, unedifying ride.

Originally published as Mark Kenny: The stakes are high so Australians should brace for an ugly, bumpy ride this election