Two-state clash to deliver victory

THE election will be won through a five-week ground war in 30 electorates, with the hand-to-hand battles concentrated in NSW and Queensland.

THE election will be won through a five-week ground war in 30 electorates, with the hand-to-hand battles concentrated in NSW and Queensland.

According to strategists, the 2010 campaign will boil down to a series of pitched by-elections, with Labor trying to sell its grassroots education, health and housing services while the Coalition will focus on how the federal government's policy missteps have led to a rise in living costs and debt.

Unlike 2007's presidential-style campaign between John Howard, seeking a fifth term, and Kevin Rudd, offering minimal change except on Work Choices, there is neither a long-term incumbent nor a would-be messiah.

Both camps expect a high-energy -- even brutal -- contest, with their researchers uncovering strong negative feelings for tyro leaders Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott.

Labor strategist Bruce Hawker, a key Kevin07 player, told The Australian yesterday: "This will be a very different campaign from the last one. It will most likely materialise as a series of hard-fought campaigns at a local level. The Liberal Party will be out there saying what it won't be doing. It'll be cutting GP super clinics, trades training centres and computers in schools.

"Our candidates, however, will be reinforcing the message that we will continue to deliver on all those things. It feeds into a more general message: our commitment is to health and education, and we are focusing on the future, not going back to the past."

Senior Liberal and former federal party director Andrew Robb, who steered the Coalition's victory in 1996, says a first-term government would normally run on its record. "But Labor can't do that because it hasn't laid the foundations. Only a third- or fourth-term government would run a defensive marginal-seats campaign where you are trying to hold up the fortress.

"Our campaign will highlight how Labor's bungling and policy-on-the-run have wasted taxpayers' money and contributed to the rising cost of living. Of course they'll say 'Look forward' because they don't want voters to focus on the last three weeks, much less the last three years."

At this election, 14 million people in 150 electorates will be eligible to vote. Labor and the Coalition are targeting 58 seats held by 6 per cent or less (on a two-party-preferred basis), the Electoral Commissioner's definition of "marginal". Yet the bulk of funds and campaign workers will be deployed in the 30 most marginal electorates (under 2.6 per cent), 10 of which are in NSW, and eight in Queensland.

Incumbency has allowed Labor to pinpoint its social and stimulus grants on those key electorates in play. It has used so-called "nation-building" funds for health, education and economic infrastructure to target spending to high-profile projects on roads, hospitals, housing, cancer centres, technical colleges and sport facilities, while providing micro-grants for community facilities such as libraries and parks.

Mr Robb said the Coalition would try to generate "third-party endorsement" from its traditional base. "If you can get your own supporters confident and enthusiastic about your policies they can really influence their workmates, family members and friends to switch their votes to your side."