Even during the 2016 election campaign when Labor wasn’t expected to win, Shorten could throw up a distraction or scare that unhinged the Coalition campaign. But the 2019 campaign is proving to be a different matter of distractions — Scott Morrison fends off Labor’s attempts to divert him from his singular message on the economy and tax as being part of the “Canberra bubble” while Shorten is again proving sloppy and ill-disciplined in answers that can’t just be dismissed as a throwaway lines.
At the beginning of the campaign, Shorten ran into unexpected difficulty over his climate change policy and how long it took to charge an electric car; then he had to admit the negative gearing policy was off the Labor website to be “updated”; then, most damaging of all, he declared Labor had no plans to change superannuation.
He had to front up, confess and “take it on the chin” that Labor actually had plans for $34 billion in superannuation changes. The Liberals pounced. Labor declared that the Easter weekend was a chance to “reset” the campaign and it was fair to think Shorten would learn from a couple of beginner’s mistakes.
But, again, Shorten has gifted Morrison an opportunity to say the Labor leader is not aware of his tax and economic policies, doesn’t grasp detail and can’t be trusted on numbers. Yesterday Shorten spent a fair bit of time — including quoting a six-month-old report in The Australian — to explain away an assurance he gave a “worker” on $250,000 that Labor would look at tax cuts for high-income earners.
The explanation was all about post-2023 — beyond two elections — when Labor would consider dropping the budget repair levy on high-income earners. Again, frontbencher Brendan O’Connor had to explain that Shorten was just being “respectful” while Shorten had to backtrack.
At the same time, Shorten, campaigning in Queensland, was caught over the Labor message on whether the Adani coalmine approval would be reviewed by an incoming Labor government. His Queensland candidates are saying different things from him and Labor’s national message continues to be conflicted.
After almost two weeks of campaigning, Shorten is still giving Morrison gifts as the campaign tightens and Labor, the favourite to win, faces tougher scrutiny.