Election 2022: Ill-discipline on the campaign trail will kill off Albo’s dream

Anthony Albanese enjoys a try by South Sydney during the NRL side’s win over the St George Illawarra Dragons on Saturday. Picture: Getty Images

So the starter’s gun has been fired finally and the faux campaign is over. As noted in The Weekend Australian’s editorial, it’s now time for authenticity to shine.

Campaign teams of eager staffers, lobbyists, apparatchiks, ministers and their advisers are holed up in campaign offices right now giving endless advice to the campaign directors.

As if Liberal federal campaign director Andrew Hirst and ALP national secretary Paul Erickson haven’t rehearsed this first week over and over. They have. And, like every set-play start, especially with a short week ending in Good Friday, this will all be about control, discipline and not stuffing up.

Labor has already shown a lack of campaign discipline with stray memes and Mark Dreyfus helpfully commenting beyond portfolio on Anthony Albanese’s signature aged-care announcement. Little wonder Labor has issued a Jeff Kennett-style media gag from its frontbench through to the candidate running in Cook.

Campaigns in the early days are also all about establishing the frame of the election. Each side will talk to its strengths. So for Labor last week it was action on climate change by announcing not a carbon tax but a desire to co-host a UN climate change conference, and for the Coalition delivering Bushmasters to Ukraine.

The mechanics of the campaign now kick in. The early morning and late-night strategy calls will dominate the daily cycle of each campaign director’s life. Hirst will have the counsel of one of the best in the business, Yaron Finkelstein, and the battle-hardened Liberal state campaign directors, so many of whom have been on the receiving end of losses to Labor at the state level.

Erickson will have a campaign committee headed by party president Wayne Swan, the world’s greatest treasurer. Rounding out the morning strategy calls will be Labor’s Wong, Keneally and Gallagher. Labor’s very capable deputy leader, Richard Marles, will add strategic insight. The Prime Minister and Opposition Leader will join the first calls each day before going out to execute the set-play announcement; cue smiling party members and the well-advanced “talent” as the set-play backdrop of the carefully choreographed day.

So, too, will media briefs go out to the early morning radio hosts, breakfast TV talking heads and the social media teams cranking up overnight campaigns, while journalists will get texts with the latest lines and questions that should be asked of each leader.

Later, as the morning moves towards noon and shadows or ministers are prepped to attack the leaders’ announcements of the day, the press team will be ringing media contacts and pushing out well-researched dirt files on opposing candidates. The first week of 2019 was a blitzkrieg of dirt relished by backroom researchers having a field day exposing inconvenient truths from both sides. No doubt 2022 will be little different as we saw with the Labor candidate in Reid being called out as too close to controversial Chinese-Australian businessman Chau Chak Wing.

We saw on Saturday night the opening salvos in the respective major party campaigns; Scott Morrison reprising the highly successful John Howard “Min Wing” ad and an opening mea culpa on fires and floods.

Albanese, by contrast, was still trying to fill in the blanks for voters. We saw vision of him walking alone beside a security fence and likewise in a car to illustrate six years of being infrastructure minister. Maybe just some of the many ports, railways and roads he commissioned would’ve been better, but it was great to see Albo looking prime ministerial.

One of most fascinating ads yet is from Clive Palmer on interest rates and legislating a cap on mortgages. With so many under pressure from sky-high fuel prices and grocery bills, the concern about rising interest rates is electorally popular. Interest rates under Labor will be an issue pursued by Palmer and the Liberals. The sheer weight of advertising Palmer has promised will crowd out Labor’s message and add to the climate of uncertainty about the future.

The election has been briefed by the ALP’s small-target strategists as a referendum on Morrison. And no doubt they believe in the Easter bunny and Father Christmas. It’s been a pretty easy parry from the Prime Minister to simply say “you know me, you don’t know my opponent”.

What if the small-targeters wake to the equal and opposite jiu jitsu move on their position that this election is a referendum on Albanese? A referendum on saying little other than we’ll never again say a lot. And on the basis of “trust us … we’re not Morrison and, ahem … not Shorten”.

As noted last week the national polls still show a landslide to Labor, a comfortable win of at least 15 seats. The seat-by-seat contests, however, tell a very different story. Polling released by Redbridge for News Corp papers showed Labor ahead in Bass, but worryingly not yet gaining Longman, in serious danger of losing McEwen and behind in Greenway. I don’t believe the Greenway result as Michelle Rowland is one of the most talented and tenacious campaigners.

The great Labor campaigns that delivered a change of government have all been preceded by visionary, bold plans for our nation. Think Whitlam, Hawke and Rudd. The only time Labor won from opposition has been to capture the national imagination. Kevin Rudd won 10 seats in Queensland in 2007 and secured a third senator, so the party is more than capable of meeting Albo’s request for 10 seats in 2022.

I feel for Albo knowing he’s on the edge of being one of Labor’s greatest prime ministers and surrounded by the small-targeters. So with all the positioning of the couldabeen, once were, never were, small-targeters clogging up the Labor strategy unit, I just say get out your napkins at the Sussex Street Chinese restaurant and simply write “Let Albo be Albo”. It’s time to allow Albo to be Labor’s next prime minister.

Cameron Milner is a former Queensland Labor state secretary and member of Labor’s national executive. He was Bill Shorten’s chief of staff in 2016. He has worked on 33 election campaigns for Labor across 30 years, most recently the Palaszczuk campaign. He is a director of Next Level Strategic Services, a national government relations firm.