Audrey Young: Rating the Australian election campaign - week 1

Anthony Albanese goes from the Ramones to Taylor Swift in 24 hours. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION:

It has been a week of trainwrecks, car crashes and mad dashes in week one of the campaign for the election on May 21.

All aboard the Albanese trainwreck

Labor's Anthony Albanese had the dubious honour of doing the impossible – blowing up his campaign before it had begun.

Sky News' laconic political editor Andrew Clennell asked a killer question on day one: "What's the national unemployment rate?" It was during what we in New Zealand call a stand-up and what they in Australia call a doorstop with a group of travelling media in Launceston, Tasmania.

Albanese: "The national unemployment rate at the moment is, I think it's five point, four – sorry, I'm not sure what it is."

The Daily Telegraph Australia front page the day after the blunder over the unemployment rate.

Shortly before that he had been unable to say what the local unemployment rate was in Tasmania, nor the Reserve Bank's official cash rate, and had warned reporters he was not going to enter "an auction" in terms of giving various rates for various things.

But Clennell may have sensed Albanese was deflecting for a reason, and he persisted. The Albanese gaffe received saturation coverage and some brutal headlines.

Shadow Finance Minister Katy Gallagher was with Albanese and was then asked whether she knew either of the stats - a no-win situation. If she knew, she would be accentuating her leader's ignorance and if she didn't know, it would be doubly disastrous.
She knew: "The Reserve Bank rate is 0.1 per cent and the unemployment rate is 4 per cent," she said.

The only consolation for Albanese on the first day is that when former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard was told about the gaffe by a reporter, he said: "So what?"

Mad dash for the exit

The incident put Albanese on the defensive all week, and having to talk up his economic credentials, including an economics degree from Sydney University and a job as "an economic policy adviser to the Hawke Government," a description for him having been an adviser to the local government minister.

The next day, when the new media started questioning his description as "economic policy adviser," he cut the press conference short and walked off after eight minutes. More brutal headlines, this time about a 480-second press conference.

The West Australian front page after Albanese cut short his press conference.

RNZ's Australia correspondent Kerry-Anne Walsh hadn't caught up with that walk-off on Wednesday and explained to RNZ listeners on Thursday. She said that while Scott Morrison was "not a particularly good Prime Minister," Albanese was a genial bloke who will "hang around until the last question is asked at press conferences."

Albanese: –10,
Clennell: 10

Scott Morrison had a better start than anticipated but the sleaze around a minister's affairs threatens to hang around. Photo / Mark Tantrum

Death by a thousand sex scandals?

Prime Minister and Liberal leader Scott Morrison began the campaign with a strong headwind over trust issues and sex scandals. A series of leaked texts suggested his "friends" disliked and distrusted him even more than his enemies, and he presided over a Government in constant recovery from its most recent sex scandal.

Morrison may have hope that was behind him but news.com.au broke a story on the first day of the campaign about Rachelle Miller, a former press secretary of former Education Minister Alan Tudge, being set to get a $500,000-plus pay-out from Canberra's equivalent of ministerial services.

She alleged mistreatment during an affair although that was not supported by an inquiry.

Morrison eschewed any involvement in the financial settlement but naturally questions are being asked about the payment over a minister who did nothing wrong and the fact Morrison plans to reinstate him if re-elected.

Even if Morrison's fingerprints are not on the settlement, it's a reminder of the sleazier side of politics associated with his Government.

Morrison has started off strongly, relative to his rival but this particularly scandal may hang around.

Morrison: 7

Mad dash to the Solomon Islands

Election hostilities were dropped with bipartisan support for the Minister for the Pacific, Zed Seselja, to fly to the Solomon Islands to implore Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare not to finalise a controversial security deal with China.

Normally an election campaign is considered a caretaker period but Labor is also concerned by the deal (as is New Zealand) the possibility it could develop into a long-term military presence for China in the region and potentially a base for the PLA navy. And a leaked letter just over a week ago suggests that a proposal for a naval base was being discussed in 2020.

Trouble again in Tasmania

Scott Morrison's security detail was involved in a car crash on Thursday on its way to the airport after he had been campaigning in Tasmania with Liberal maverick MP Bridget Archer in the marginal seat of Bass.

In November last year, Archer crossed the floor to support debate on a federal anti-corruption commission. So Morrison's visit to Bass threw into focus the fact that Morrison had not delivered on his promise last election to set up a federal integrity commission.

The Sydney Morning Herald front page today condemns Scott Morrison in an editorial.

The Sydney Morning Herald was not impressed with Morrison's answers – he did not want a replica of the NSW commission and he could not get Labor's support for his model. It slammed him with a withering front page editorial today: "His approach to such a crucial issue raises serious questions about his understanding of transparency and honesty in government."

Albanese had a better Thursday campaigning in Hunter with his first-time candidate Dan Repacholi, a giant of a man standing at more than 2 metres and a former Olympic and Commonwealth Games medallist – in pistol shooting, not shotput.

QUOTE: Albanese after the election was called: "In the words of the great Ramones, Hey, ho let's go." And after the blunder over figures: "'I was concentrating on something else, it shouldn't have happened...'I fessed up, took responsibility…Here is a Taylor Swift comment for you, my theory is 'shake it off'."

QUOTE: Scott Morrison on confusions over Labor's support for offshore processing of asylum seekers: "Albanese has supported everything he has opposed and he has opposed everything that he has supported …People know me. Some people disagree with me, some people agree with me…You know who I am. When it comes to border protection, the people smugglers know who I am."

• NEXT WEEK: Scott Morrison and Albanese have their first televised debate in Brisbane at 9pm NZ Time, hosted by Sky's Kieran Gilbert.