Federal election 2016: If Shorten wages class war and wins, we all lose

Bill Shorten’s campaign has entrenched itself in an ugly class war, seeking to stoke resentment at Malcolm Turnbull’s wealth in the name of discrediting his economic agenda.

It is reminiscent of Mark Latham’s general approach in 2004, except Latham included his “ladder of opportunity” in his rhetoric. Shorten avoids such nuance, targeting his barbs more personally than Latham ever did.

This election, Labor’s ad campaign spruiking its health and education agenda starts with “maybe it’s because he never had to rely on these services”, before attacking Turnbull for spending cuts. Shorten in Sunday night’s leaders debate echoed his budget reply speech, targeting Turnbull as wanting to help the well-off at the expense of the poor.

There is always room for a genuine philosophical debate about the best way to deploy limited resources towards economic growth and improved social cohesion, but Shorten isn’t entering that debate. He is hoping to stoke resentment towards a prime minister of privilege.

Turnbull’s privilege is no more relevant than Shorten’s, who attended an elite Melbourne private school before studying law and an MBA at two top universities. It’s also irrelevant that Shorten’s first wife was the daughter of a wealthy Melbourne businessman, or that Chloe Shorten is the daughter of the former governor-general.

So why are Turnbull’s personal circumstances relevant?

Does it matter that Shorten used the Pratt family jet to dash to Beaconsfield to represent the trapped miners, or was his commitment to the union what really mattered? I’d say the latter, but if Labor were campaigning against its own leader, it would focus on the former.

Late in the 2004 campaign, Latham strayed into envy politics and paid the price. Shorten has started in that unedifying space.

Shorten’s research team must be telling him what he’s doing is working, so keep it up. The risk for Labor is the campaign running out of puff and enough voters deciding the politics of envy won’t win them over. Labor’s policy scripts are not necessarily wrong, but the pitch is.

If Shorten thinks Turnbull’s company tax cuts are motivated by impure intentions, what did he think of Labor arguing for company tax cuts at the 2010 election? Or Chris Bowen doing the same in his recent book?

Maybe the pitch will change as polling day nears and the economic argument against Turnbull’s agenda will overtake attacks on his privilege. If it doesn’t, and Shorten is rewarded for such an approach, it will represent a democratic tipping point in this country: aspiration will have been replaced by envy.

I’ve long disliked the rewards parties gain from dog-whistle politics, an approach more often taken by the conservatives. Shorten’s pitch is equally divisive.