The side of Bill Shorten we haven’t seen yet

Bill Shorten has never been a popular politician, but he could soon be the most powerful. There’s a side to the leader we haven’t yet seen.

Bill Shorten knows he’s unpopular, and he also thinks he knows why.

The Opposition Leader is in an unusual position. According to opinion polls and surrounding commentary, he’s just about a sure thing to become Australia’s next prime minister.

Voters are predicted to sweep his party to power at next month’s election, but it appears they’d prefer if someone else apart from Mr Shorten took the job at the end of it.

Labor has beaten the Coalition in more than 50 consecutive Newspoll surveys, yet Mr Shorten’s approval ratings still trail behind Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s.

The latest showed only 35 per cent of respondents thought Mr Shorten would make the better PM, but 52 per cent backed Labor over the Coalition in the two-party preferred vote.

It’s an awkward issue to bring up with the could-be PM face-to-face, but speaking with news.com.au from his campaign bus in Perth, he’s unsurprised by the question and ready to explain his popularity problem.

“When you’re the Opposition Leader, the only time you get on the media is by opposing,” he says. “When you’re prime minister, you can be constructive.”

Mr Shorten seems to believe his position has held him back. He knows people don’t seem to like the version of him they see through the cameras, criticising the Government in press conferences and calling them out in question time — but he’s confident if things go to plan in the next five weeks, the Australian people will start to see a new side to Bill Shorten. One he’s sure they’ll like.

Is there a new side to Opposition Leader Bill Shorten? Picture: Lukas Coch/AAP

Mr Shorten is careful to insist he won’t be unveiling a new version of himself. He’s learnt from his predecessor Julia Gillard’s disastrous “real Julia” moment, and even his former political opponent Tony Abbott’s widely mocked declaration that “good government starts today”.

But shadowing the Labor leader for three days across Perth last month — he started campaigning long before Mr Morrison announced the campaign — it’s clear there’s a side of Mr Shorten the average voters doesn’t get to see.

“You’ve been on the road with me now, you watch how people relate with me and how I relate with people,” he tells me. “There’s not a different Bill Shorten, that’s me. What you’ve seen is you’ve seen me at last.”

Entering sites to talk to workers about how he plans to “get their wages going again” and boost their industries, he shares personal stories and engages comfortably in banter. He cracks jokes — not the zingers he used to be known for — proper, funny things.

He’s good at relating to people and has a story for everything. At a shipyard it’s “I grew up around the docks”; at a mining machinery manufacturer, “my father was a fitter and turner”; walking out of a boot factory he tells me he knows the ins and outs of the machinery from his former life as a workers compensation lawyer.

Between stops on the Bill bus, he laughs about the country’s obsession with Married At First Sight. He also offers to show videos of the kind of dog he wants to get to keep his family’s pet bulldog Matilda company after her companion, Theodore, died of cancer earlier this year. (Wife Chloe’s told him that’s a conversation for after the election.)

Meeting workers and voters, Bill Shorten is pretty normal. Picture: Colin Murty/The Australian

But when it’s time for a policy announcement or press conference, once the cameras start rolling, it’s a different story. He appears to become a character far from the relaxed, relatable and sometimes funny guy from the bus — drawing a breath, pausing and starting his speech rather than answering questions naturally.

“I’ve had to learn how to do media,” he concedes when asked, again awkwardly, about his sometimes stilted on-camera performance.

“It might be uncharitable to say I’ve still got a lot of learning to do, but I like (talking to) people.

“I’m confident that as people get to know me, they actually realise — you forget the propaganda and the political toxicity — I’m a father of three, I get life’s complicated, I get people have got to pay the bills.”

While he’s adamant there aren’t “two Bill Shortens”, he understands “we all live in two worlds”. He knows people have their work lives to worry about as well as their families.

“The trick is to make sure at least one of your worlds is going OK. I get that we’re all human and the voters are human, and yes they have a view about climate change and national security, but underpinning that is they want to know someone’s on their side,” he says.

Bill Shorten and wife Chloe after delivering his Budget reply speech 2019. Picture: Kym Smith

As well as receiving negative reviews from the electorate, Mr Shorten has for years faced questions over whether his own party colleagues are really on his side. His role in the deposing of Labor’s last two leaders, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, made him a divisive figure in the party.

But he insists his perceived popularity problem within Labor is non-existent, or at least one he’s learnt to manage during the past two parliamentary terms.

“I’ve survived the last five-and-a-half years and taken Labor to a stronger position, and I think even my harshest critics would acknowledge that,” he says.

“There’d be plenty of people who perhaps say Bill should do this more or do that more, he’s not quite this or he’s not quite that, but on balance, you’d have noticed, my own team’s come to sort of, if not like me, to hopefully respect, but we work together.”

Mr Shorten seems less concerned about making people like him than pushing his policy plan right now.

Asked the one thing he wants people to know about him, he says: “I’ll get their wages moving. I’ll fix their health system and take action on climate change.

“I’ll tell you what they’ll want to know, I’ll keep my promises, and I’ll deliver stability, and they’ll have a prime minister for three years.”

Leigh Sales brought up the popularity problem. Picture: ABC

‘Wait until you meet me.’ Picture: ABC

Mr Shorten’s plan to win the election is simple — “get more votes than the other guys”.

“We’re going to do that through social and economic reform, a social and economic plan for Australia and the next few years and put it to the people,” he says.

He revealed more detail of that plan in last week’s Budget reply speech, which was dominated by health and hip-pocket announcements and attacking the government’s “ticking debt bomb”.

But in his interview with 7.30 ’s Leigh Sales that followed, those promises were again overshadowed by the popularity problem.

“I want to ask you something completely blunt — and I don’t want to seem rude, but Australians value authenticity, and so I just want to speak plainly,” Sales began.

“You would know that opinion polls for a long time have shown that your personal popularity is a bit lacklustre.

“What would you say to the Australian voter who thinks, ‘Jeez, I just don’t like that Bill Shorten bloke very much? I don’t know if I can vote for him?’”

Mr Shorten’s replied was swift: “Wait until you meet me and see our fair go plan in action.”

Whether he wins the election and the rest of Australia gets to “see him at last” as he hopes, what’s certain is that we’ll be seeing a lot more of Mr Shorten, and his opponent Mr Morrison, over the next few weeks.

Bill Shorten delivers the 2019-20 federal Budget reply speech. Picture: Mick Tsikas/AAP