Opinion: Medi-scare may have paid off for Labor

DENNIS ATKINS: With the spectre of a hung parliament hanging over a tight election, the gamble on a Medicare scare campaign might have been worth it.

WITH the spectre of a hung parliament hanging over what looks like a too close to call election result, Bill Shorten’s gamble to bet the house on a Medicare scare campaign might have been worth doing.

Labor might fall short of a shock upset, but the call to push the Coalition on what is an iconic government service with Medicare caused anxiety in Malcolm Turnbull’s headquarters.

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However, the record number of votes cast before this weekend complicates things.

About 30 per cent of voters filled in their ballots early, which could make results hard to call for a day or more.

After Labor decided they couldn’t beat the Coalition in a head-to-head contest on the economy, the campaign managers pushed an emotional button – Medicare – which has been the policy best left alone in Australian politics.

The Galaxy exit poll which showed a 50/50 split in key marginals – including a swing against the Coalition in Queensland of 3.4 per cent – had health and Medicare as the number one issue, with just short of one in two voters nominating it as the key reason for voting how they did.

After Labor decided they couldn’t beat the Coalition in a contest on the economy, the campaign managers pushed an emotional button – Medicare. Picture: Getty Images

Early exit polls and other predictions need to be balanced by late-voting Western Australia, which is two hours behind the eastern seaboard, and the big number of people who voted before Saturday.

Queensland seems to have dashed Labor’s hopes of getting enough seats to have a chance at a majority, with just one gain possible and two at best. At the beginning of the campaign Labor was bullish about Queensland, with some insiders predicting they would take as many as seven or eight LNP seats.

This always sounded too optimistic – especially with the unpopularity of the Palaszczuk Government and the historically low primary vote recorded in 2013.

Other interesting developments are that the economy was fourth on the list of issues nominated in the exit polling, which might have held back Turnbull’s pitch on jobs and growth.

The Nick Xenophon Team factor doesn’t seem to have been quite as strong in South Australia as other polls showed, with exit results yesterday giving the NXT less than 20 per cent.

Originally published as Opinion: Medi-scare may have paid off for Labor