Caleb Bond: Labor’s small-target strategy may have finally caught up with it

There are always a few kids in the class who leave the hard work until the last minute, writes Caleb Bond.

There are always a few kids in the class who bum around all year and try to cram every bit of study into the day before the exam.

They have varying degrees of success – most often very little.

Anthony Albanese is the equivalent of that kid in the election campaign.

He Thursday took off on a 20-seat marginal blitz in an effort to shore up victory in what should be an unlosable election.

Mr Albanese has, of course, heard that phrase before.

It is that phrase that delivered him the leadership of the Labor Party in 2019.

And he’d rather not repeat that scenario again.

Labor’s small-target strategy may have finally caught up with it.

Polling this week showed a tighter race than previous weeks in light of the Coalition’s plan to let people spend their own superannuation on a home.

This campaign has been bereft of policy and vision on both sides of the aisle but it at least positioned the government as having some plan for the country.

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese speaks at a press conference during a visit to Alstom Transport Australia in Perth. Picture: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Mr Albanese, meanwhile, was still flipping around telling people to look at the other guy and trying to land attacks on government debt – even though Labor has not delivered a surplus in three decades.

Couple that with vision of him walking away from a press conference and refusing to answer questions – the second time he has put on such a performance during this campaign – and you have to wonder whether the bloke actually wants the job.

The impression Mr Albanese has given, almost every day of this campaign, is he would rather fall across the line than earn his place in The Lodge.

He has shown no fight. He does not instil confidence that, in times of great geopolitical instability, he would be a strong voice on the world stage.

At least we know Scott Morrison has a bit of fight in him after crash tackling that kid on Wednesday.

In reality, the best thing that happened to Labor’s campaign was Mr Albanese catching Covid.

With the leader out of action for a week, it put his team front and centre – and many of them were impressive.

More than a few people have wondered to me why Jason Clare or Jim Chalmers – both good performers who present well, are across their brief, can fight political opponents and prosecute arguments – are not running the Labor Party.

Shadow minister for housing and homelessness Jason Clare. Picture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer

That episode at least showed Labor has some talent and is not just one man who cannot remember his policies and makes up others on the spot.

It put them back on course after a horror first week on the hustings.

The danger for Labor now, though, is that voters retreat to the devil they know in the dying days of the campaign. That is how Bill Shorten lost his chance to be prime minister in 2019.

People looked at him in the week before the election and decided, on balance, that he was weak.

Voters were ambivalent about Mr Morrison then and they certainly haven’t warmed to him since. But there is little doubt he has a steadier pair of hands.

So Mr Albanese and his front bench are now trying to saturate the country – the roadshow will hit Boothby Friday – and give the impression they do actually want to govern.

But do we really want a party that has left its hard campaigning and costing announcements to the last minute to be in charge of repelling China and a budget saddled with record debt?

Originally published as Caleb Bond: Labor’s small-target strategy may have finally caught up with it