Long campaign fraught with risks for both Turnbull and Shorten
THE unprecedented eight-week election campaign is fraught with risks for both major political parties.
Federal Election
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THE unprecedented eight-week election campaign is fraught with risks for both major political parties.
Plenty can go wrong during a long campaign, as former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke found out when he announced a seven-week campaign in 1984.
Mr Hawke, who had been swept to power the previous year, was unprepared for a surprisingly strong showing from rookie Liberal leader Andrew Peacock.
Labor won the election but politicians have since generally held the view that short campaigns of about 33-days are a lower-risk option for incumbent governments.
As fatigue sets in after a long period on the election trail, senior politicians risk making errors which will be seized on by their opponents.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was effectively forced to order such a long campaign period because of constitutional technicalities related to the timing of Double Dissolution elections and the length of Senate terms.
Former Tony Abbott chief-of-staff Peta Credlin said that running such a long campaign would be extremely difficult.
“I couldn’t imagine a 54-day slog — hard, hard, hard,’’ Ms Credlin told Sky News.
Liberal party founder Sir Robert Menzies is credited with calling Australia’s longest campaign when he gave 94 days’ notice of the 1954 election.
Sir Robert revealed the election date early to take advantage of a favourable public mood during a visit to Australia by the Queen.
But the election — which Sir Robert won — was not formally called until closer to the poll date.
Mr Turnbull’s Coalition Government goes into the election holding 90 of the 150 House of Representatives seats, compared to Labor’s 55 seats.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s team would need to win 21 additional seats to form a majority government.
The Government and the Opposition have been neck-and-neck in public opinion polls and neither party is taking victory for granted.
Originally published as Long campaign fraught with risks for both Turnbull and Shorten
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