Federal election 2016: Who won Day Ten of the campaign?

Shorten was campaigning - and kissing - so well before Feeney’s property blunder; while the Coalition had to backdown.

Everything went perfectly for Bill Shorten on Tuesday – up to the moment when his frontbencher David Feeney had to admit to owning a $2.3 million property he failed to declare.

Feeney’s admission makes Labor look lazy on financial disclosure just as it tries to attack Malcolm Turnbull for not being transparent enough about his investments. It is a cartoon moment: just as Labor throws a stick of dynamite at its enemy, it overlooks the fuse burning under its feet.

LIVE: Federal Election Campaign, Day 10

The $2.3m house in Northcote is not like a shareholding in a mining company or a secret business asset that might trigger a conflict of interest when a law is passed or a decision is made in parliament. Yet it is a basic blunder that make Feeney a bigger target in a seat that Labor needs to hold against the Greens. It also curbs Labor’s ability to attack Coalition MPs on the same grounds in the future.

This was not a minor oversight. Feeney and his wife bought the property in December 2013. He failed to report it on the pecuniary interest register for almost the entirety of the last parliament.

Campaign victory

Still, Shorten is campaigning so well that voters may remember Labor’s successes on Tuesday rather than the stumble at the end.

The Opposition Leader announced $500 million for a new tram network in Adelaide and then caught a tram to mark the moment. He hit it off with voters and then got a giant kiss on a city street from Margot Casey, who accosted him from her mobility scooter. Shorten, who led the way in setting up the National Disability Insurance Scheme, enjoyed the moment.

Margo Carey, 49, says hello to the Opposition Leader. pic.twitter.com/qI4KMEJk48

— joe kelly (@joekellyoz) May 17, 2016

Small moments can have a big impact in election campaigns. Shorten’s experience was a huge contrast with Malcolm Turnbull’s experience last week, when he was approached by an angry mum who wanted more spending on education.

Policy defeat

The Coalition campaign, meanwhile, had to make a clumsy policy change to quell a rural backlash. Turnbull tried to keep his distance from the decision, leaving it to Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer to announce a review of the backpacker tax, but he could not avoid being part of the backdown.

Less than two weeks after the federal budget, the government has postponed one of the measures it announced. It is buying time and will have to write down some of the revenue in its election costings, weakening its budget bottom line.

While Labor continues to be undermined by internal differences on asylum seekers and confused messages on penalty rates, the government’s policy mess was a bigger immediate problem.

Who won the day?

If campaigns are judged on “optics” alone, Shorten had a clear victory with the surprise pash with Margot.

If campaigns are judged on policies instead, Turnbull had an obvious defeat as he and his ministers backflipped on backpackers.

It was Shorten’s day. But he would have enjoyed it more without Feeney.