Federal Election 2016: Who won day 19?

Bill Shorten had to accept unpopular savings and David Feeney gaffes as Malcolm Turnbull attacks over costings.

Bill Shorten visits the Michael Long Learning and Leadership Centre in Darwin, but that was the only fun and games for the Opposition Leader as he had to own up to a “very tough financial situation” that made it impossible to restore the spending if he won power. Picture: Kym Smith.

Bill Shorten’s campaign on fairness had a reality check on Thursday. After two years of campaigning against cuts to families, he had to accept unpopular savings like the scrapping of the Schoolkids Bonus and the tightening of the assets test for the Aged Pension. Worse, he had to take the political pain of being forced into the retreat by a series of gaffes from frontbencher and friend David Feeney.

Shorten turned his rejection of Coalition budget cuts a crusade on fairness after the May 2014 budget. On Thursday morning, campaigning in Darwin, he had to own up to a “very tough financial situation” that made it impossible to restore the spending if he won power.

In the space of a day or so, Labor has lost the high ground in the costings fight. Labor treasury spokesman Chris Bowen and finance spokesman Tony Burke were on the attack on Tuesday when they found an error in the government’s claims about a “black hole” in their policy costings. Now they have to scramble to clarify their policy positions.

This is the price Labor pays for pretending it could oppose these savings all the way to election day. It would have been wiser for Shorten to accept some of these savings in his budget reply speech on May 5, getting them out of the way before the campaign began.

The Schoolkids Bonus has been a central element in Labor’s arguments about cuts to household budgets under Tony Abbott and then Malcolm Turnbull. It is why almost every Labor case study has included a family with two children, both of school age – the type of families that lose most. The entire picture is different if the case study is a family with two children in childcare, where higher government payments tend to offset cuts.

That means the confirmation on Thursday morning was not just a quick retreat. It holds implications for Labor’s entire campaign on “fairness” and the advertising it can run to promise voters more money after a change of government.

DPM @Barnaby_Joyce warns @TurnbullMalcolm against eating a raw sweet potato #oniongate #auspol @australian pic.twitter.com/bRTxT7ASHb

— Rachel Baxendale (@rachelbaxendale) May 26, 2016

Malcolm Turnbull’s problems were more fleeting: dealing with a gaffe from Nationals leader and deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, who linked the ban on live cattle exports to Indonesia with the rise in asylum seeker boats coming from Indonesia. It was a clear suggestion that the Indonesian government encouraged the boats and it was quickly rejected by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, Treasurer Scott Morrison and the Indonesian government.

To make the government’s discomfort more obvious, Joyce had to dodge questions from journalists while campaigning with Turnbull in rural Queensland, shouting “Michael, Michael, Michael” to the journalist with a question he wanted to answer. Television footage showed Joyce’s Nationals mate Matt Canavan pointing out “Michael” to set up the question.

The government was on the defensive over Joyce’s comments but it was on the attack on costings – an issue that matters far more to the election campaign.

The day was a clear win for Turnbull.