Fierce battle of messaging marks the dying days of the campaign

One of the most valuable pieces of data provided by Isentia for Crikey’s Campaign Insights has been about what issues have dominated coverage from week to week during the campaign. They’ve shown that Scott Morrison’s efforts to run down Anthony Albanese’s lead have been hampered by having to regularly “fight on his opponent’s turf” — talking about issues that are not his strengths (macroeconomic management and national security) and about issues that Labor is strong on (wages, health, aged care).

Data from the final week of the campaign to Wednesday night also shows a similar contest being fought over the messaging of the leaders — the issues they talk about unprompted. Both started with a specific list of issues that formed the core of their opening pitches. For Anthony Albanese, those issues were aged care and childcare, unemployment and jobs, climate action, skills, infrastructure, healthcare and cost of living — all issues that Labor believes play well for it. For Morrison, the list was the economy, unemployment and jobs, lower taxes, infrastructure and national security — likewise, issues that the Liberals believe play well for them.

Notice that Morrison’s list was significantly shorter. Critics may argue that he had little else to talk about, but that means Morrison had a much more targeted message, whereas Albanese made the mistake of diffusing Labor’s message across a range of policy areas without a unifying and underlying message. If Morrison manages to scrape home tomorrow, this may have been a contributing factor to Labor’s loss.

But as the campaign went on, both leaders widened their topics of choice — remember, this is what they are talking about unprompted. Albanese added manufacturing (another big Labor issue), productivity (generally not a Labor issue, but Albanese linked it to wage rises), and budget management (a Coalition strength).

Morrison added budget management, a clear Liberal strength, to his list — but also skills investment and healthcare, two Labor issues — and, most significantly, housing, via the super-for-housing announcement, which proved a bold and, who knows, perhaps election-winning gamble to move onto Labor turf. By this week, Morrison was talking about as diffuse a list of issues as Albanese — his capacity for staying on message no matter what doesn’t seem to have applied to his choice of topics.

So while Morrison was more disciplined and targeted initially, even putting aside the calculated gamble of super for housing, he has been forced by the nature of the campaign, and by Labor’s own tactics, to dilute his own messaging — as, to some extent, has Albanese. It’s the messaging equivalent of the military adage that no plan survives contact with the enemy.

Nonetheless, in the seven days covered by the data, Insentia shows the ground moving somewhat back in the Coalition’s favour. While cost of living, wages and climate were the three leading issues in media coverage — all Labor-favourable or at best neutral for the government — the issue of policy costings (a farce, but one always favourable to the government of the day), super for housing and Morrison’s campaign launch all featured among the most covered topics. Although, reflecting that super for housing was only launched on Sunday afternoon, that issue received far smaller overall coverage than cost of living and wages.

In the swing seats, Allegra Spender continued to attract more coverage than Dave Sharma in Wentworth — a fascinating outcome that the NSW Liberals will need to investigate win or lose tomorrow. In Kooyong, Josh Frydenberg picked up more coverage compared to Monique Ryan, though at no stage in recent weeks has her share of coverage dropped below around 40%. It’s better news for Gladys Liu in Chisholm, who dominated coverage of that seat, although not always positively.

Tomorrow night will reveal just what impact the twists and turns of media coverage, revealed by Isentia over the past few weeks, will have on the outcome. If Scott Morrison survives, it will be in the face of the persistent drift of the political conversation onto issues more favourable for his opponent.