Here’s All The Shit That Happened On Day 22 Of The Federal Election Campaign

It’s almost over. The election campaign of little policy and all waffle – which is hardly different to most elections – is wrapping up into its second last week.

The day started with polls. If you trust them, two major polls were released on Sunday evening. The Ipsos poll had Scott Morrison at 45 as preferred PM, which is -1 from last week, and Bill Shorten was up to 40, +5 for him. As far as parties go, the Coalition sits at 48(+1) and the Labor Party is at 52 (-1).

Of course, polls are dumb. That is something you should never forget.

A seperate poll, Newspoll, found the Coalition sits at 49 while the Labor Party sits at 51. It’s all a mess, really, and the only poll that matters is the one on May 18 (the literal election).

Before I bore you with polls, this one is funny: Advance Australia, otherwise known as conservative GetUp, released its own polling to show Independent candidate in Warringah Zali Steggall ahead of former PM Tony Abbot 51-49. Why did they do this? Probably some weird idea about convincing people not to protest vote. I don’t know. These are the same folks who thought up the brain worm of “Captain GetUp.”

GetUp! released its own poll which was a bit more one-sided, showing Steggall ahead 56-44.

Both Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten spent the weekend trying to own each other with video game analogies. The only problem is that neither of them have played a video game since the internet went wireless, so their references are all Space Invader-this and Pac-Man that. It’s lame as hell.

https://twitter.com/petertaggart/status/1125150374090776576

Much was made of former Prime Minister and Labor God Paul Keating popping up in the media, crashing the ABC’s live coverage yesterday to have a chat to the people at home. While he was there, Keating accused the country’s security agencies have lost the plot, describing them as nutters. He also called ScoMo a “fossil with a baseball cap.”

Peter Dutton, the public face of Australia’s national security apparatus, took the comments really well. He released a lengthy statement calling on Bill Shorten to “urgently explain” whether he agrees with Paul Keating. Like that’s going to happen.

Elsewhere Scott Morrison stuck to his guns, telling the public Labor would spend lots of money and tax even more. He took his time to talk about having a go and giving a go and also reminded everyone that if he doesn’t win, Bill Shorten does. Which, again, is an interesting tactic attempting to cut into Bill Shorten’s lack of personal approval from the public, but it doesn’t necessarily make him look better as a result.

Morrison also said his government had not changed anything for those on the country’s top tax rate, which it would be interesting if it was true. David Speers of Sky News pretty quickly fact checked the PM on that one.

Would-be Treasurer, Labor’s Chris Bowen, and current Treasurer Josh Frydenberg met to debate the economy (also just a reminder that our Prime Minister and Deputy Leader are called “Scott” and “Josh”.)

Bowen highlighted how he had so far debated three different Treasurers over the years and called for a full breakdown of costings for high-income tax cuts. Scott Morrison already dodged questions about this today, so Labor is going hard trying to get someone, anyone, to say something, anything.

Frydenberg responded by saying Labor was planning to encourage class welfare by making old retirees feel like tax cheats.

A third debate between ScoMo and Shorten will be held on Wednesday night at the National Press Club, so watch that if you feel like glazing over a repeat of the last debate, and the last debate before that.

Tonight, Morrison is on the ABC’s 7:30, while Shorten is on Q&A later on. A real double header there. Q&A’s producer, Peter McEvoy, let everyone know on Monday afternoon that the Prime Minister would not be appearing on the show before the election.

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