Why the Federal Election has got Osher Gunsberg in a lather
In Campaign Confidential, we look at how Osher Gunsberg has a Margot Robbie moment, Covid is stalking the candidates, and the polls start splitting.
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Welcome to Campaign Confidential, where we cast a coolly discerning eye over today’s election news, and pick out the good bits.
Osher’s in a lather
TIRED of the campaign already? Sick of the spin, the pointless pic-ops and the endless posturing? We may have the club for you. A mob called Change Politics is pushing for a new way of making big decisions, using citizens’ assemblies to advise governments on critical issues. Pollies, they say, are just too compromised by the grubby business of winning elections to be trusted with making big decisions, and citizens’ assemblies have worked in Ireland and France. But they have their work cut out for them: back in 2010 when Julia Gillard suggested a citizen assembly to deal with climate change, the idea was shot down from all quarters. Change Politics has enlisted Osher Gunsberg to their cause, releasing a video with the former Australian Idol host spruiking the case for citizens assemblies in a bubble bath, a bit like a sudsy Margot Robbie explaining mortgage backed securities in the movie The Big Short. (It’s not the first time an Idol host has waded into political waters, after James Mathison took on Tony Abbott in Warringah in 2016. He came a distant fourth.) While we’re tempted to say the citizen assembly issue has got Osher in a lather, in some parts of the video it looks as if he’s in danger of not being lathered enough – there’s an alarming lack of bubbles protecting his modesty. Still, it’s nice to see some clean campaigning for a change.
Poll positions
THERE’S another contest happening alongside the federal election: the competition among pollsters and pundits to correctly predict the outcome. It’s been well documented that Australian polling companies failed in this regard in 2019, but more recently we’ve been assured the pollsters have sharpened their game. It’s interesting, then, that the polls are starting to diverge.
While they all have Labor leading on a two-party-preferred basis, Newspoll has the split at 53/47, Ipsos has it at 55/45, and Roy Morgan reckons the ALP is in front 57/43. They can’t all be right.
Covid’s coming
ONE election prediction we can make with absolute certainty: Covid is set to play havoc. On Tuesday Labor’s Kristina Keneally and the Coalition’s Angie Bell both revealed they had tested positive and would be isolating for seven days. Ms Bell told Campaign Confidential this is actually her seventh iso period since the pandemic hit two years ago. She’ll miss a jobs fair convention on the Gold Coast which she was instrumental in securing, and also notes “no Easter bunny for me”. Her six other 14-day isolation periods were travel related.
Political statement
Scott Morrison talked up his jobs plan at the Rheem factory in Sydney’s Rydalmere on Tuesday. It was a robust performance by the PM: feisty, clear and confident. But we couldn’t help but notice an employee had left their own political statement for the press pack. It perhaps wasn’t quite as verbose as the PM’s speech, but the meaning was no less clear.
Ice ice baby
The press pack following Anthony Albanese were left less than impressed on their flight from Launceston to Melbourne, when the flight attendant warned they had “storage issues” with the food, meaning “slightly frozen wraps and sandwiches”. Out they came: icy chicken, icy bacon, and icy lentil salad. But who said life on the campaign trail was all wine and roses? Nobody ever.
Rex and the ex
Clive Palmer and Jacqui Lambie. Brian Burston and Pauline Hanson. Campaign Confidential loves a political falling-out, and it seems we’ve got another on our hands. Rex Patrick took Nick Xenophon’s SA Senate seat in 2017 when the latter resigned, but the bromance has hit the dust. Last month Patrick likened Xenophon’s legal work for Huawei as being akin to working for the Nazis, and this week Senator Rex was at it again, warning voters that Xenophon’s “last-minute candidacy” could actually help get One Nation or the United Australia Party elected in SA. Frankly, we’re not sure of Patrick’s logic, but we’re here for the fireworks.
Lax with the facts
IF the first full day of the campaign taught us anything, it was that sometimes facts are hard, but important. But if you’re going to call out someone over facts, you best have a firm grip on your own. In their haste to smash Albo yesterday, the Liberal campaign HQ sent out a missive headed “Labor lies”, smashing the ALP leader over three quotes. Trouble was, they messed up the dates, claiming two were from 11 April 2020, when they were actually from 11 April 2022, and one was from April 2024, which smells fishy to us. Who’s checking the fact checkers?
Guy’s soft jab for Albo
Croydon in Melbourne’s outer eastern suburbs is a long way from the marginal Tassie seat of Bass; it’s a long way from Canberra’s corridors of power; and to be fair, it’s a long way from anywhere.
But as the heavy hits came for Anthony Albanese over his blunder on two key economic indicators, a bloke who knows a thing or two about things blowing up (hello Lobster with a Mobster), couldn’t help but throw a jab at the alternative PM.
Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy was out in bleak Croydon on Tuesday announcing $50k for the local strip when he was asked about Albo’s day one shocker.
“When the election is about jobs and the economy, I guess the most important thing to know is the unemployment rate if you want to lower it and create jobs,” Mr Guy said.
“What it says to me is Labor isn’t ready to govern federally, they haven’t been for some time, and I don’t think they are now either.”
It made us think it was a rather muted attack from Mr Guy, but, with an election of his own to fight in November against Chairman Dan, perhaps the Liberal leader, with thoughts of lobsters and mobsters playing out in his mind, thought it best to float and sting like a butterfly.
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Originally published as Why the Federal Election has got Osher Gunsberg in a lather
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