This was published 8 years ago
Election 2016: How a lazy campaign strategy left Malcolm Turnbull struggling
By Matthew Knott
The final days of an election campaign, you might assume, would be filled with frenetic activity. Especially with all the major polls predicting a tight result. I certainly did when I took a deep breath and hopped aboard the Turnbull bus to cover the final two weeks of the campaign.
They turned out to be anything but.
Rather than a man locked in the fight of his life, Turnbull looked like a footballer running down the clock. The pace of the campaign - already at a low tempo - grew positively languid.
"We will win on July 2," Turnbull had declared weeks earlier and he was acting like it as he strolled towards the finish line. A busy day contained two events, some just one.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull with his wife Lucy at the Sunny Harbour Yum Cha restaurant.Credit: Andrew Meares
Take the final three days.
On Wednesday we visited a yum cha restaurant in Hurstville for lunch.
The resulting pictures of the Turnbull and his granddaughter Isla were brilliant. Yet it seemed a bold choice given the restaurant was in Barton, a notionally Labor electorate being contested by a high-profile former state MP. Labor's Linda Burney won the seat easily on Saturday night.
A press conference, dominated by uncomfortable questions on same-sex marriage, followed before we jetted to Canberra and received an early mark.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during a visit to Robotic Automation in Newington, Sydney.Credit: Andrew Meares
Surely, we thought, the PM would duck across to Eden Monaro the next day to campaign for Peter Hendy, one of his key backers who was behind in the polls.
Instead, the PM's only appearance was a speech at the National Press Club, where he ramped up expectations of a thumping victory by singling out Chisholm in Victoria and Werriwa in NSW as two possible Liberal gains. Chisholm looks like it will turn blue but Labor in fact recorded a swing towards it in Gough Whitlam's former seat. Peter Hendy went down in Eden-Monaro.
Former national Liberal campaign director Tony Nutt.Credit: Andrew Meares
Then it was straight back to home base in Sydney until election day. No dash to Melbourne, where the Country Fire Authority dispute was bleeding votes from Labor. Or Tasmania, which received only three quick visits despite containing a swag of marginal seats. Labor picked up three Tasmanian seats on election night - a stunning result Liberals admit they didn't see coming.
On Friday we toured a krill oil factory before a street walk through Burwood. It felt like a victory lap. Turnbull appeared radiant - the croaky, cranky figure of a week before now a distant memory.
Illustration: Cathy Wilcox
Did he give it all he had or could he have pushed just that little bit harder?
His advisers, too, exuded self-belief, boasting of how the PM had been "on a roll" in recent days. By 2.30pm the final day of campaigning wrapped up.
"We thought he had his mojo back, we thought he had an air of confidence," a Coalition MP sighed on Sunday, as the spectre of a hung parliament grew.
"In hindsight, it seems there was a thin line between confidence and cockiness."
Political historians will no doubt wonder why a prime minister who appeared to find the process of politicking such a chore choose a marathon eight-week campaign.
And how a man who seemed so certain could sleepwalk into a horror election result.
Then another question, one only Turnbull can answer. Did he give it all he had or could he have pushed just that little bit harder?
Follow Matthew Knott on Facebook