When it unloads $34 billion from the gravy train a Government can expect to get some sort of campaign lift and so it proved yesterday. The joint announcement of future tax reductions by Prime Minister John Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello completely dominated day two of the election campaign. From radio during the day, to the evening television and in this morning’s newspapers, the front running Labor Party was squeezed out of the news cycle.

The Crikey Daily Verdict indicator shows the second win in a row for the Coalition campaign team. Yesterday’s gap was considerable – nearly six points on our 10 point scale with the Coalition scoring 7.5 points to Labor’s 1.7.

The Coalition won every one of the four segments that make up the Daily Verdict.

Coalition ALP
Television 4.70 1.16
Newspapers 1.60 0.00
Radio 0.84 0.32
Internet 0.34 0.25
TOTAL 7.48 1.73

The victory would have been even more complete but for the Prime Ministerial stumble on  A Current Affair when asked about the Reserve Bank interest rate. That featured on this morning’s television and on the internet as journalists searched for something new to say.

You will find details of the way the Daily Verdict is compiled, with the help of raw material provided by our friends at Media Monitors, on the Crikey website.