Albo drops out of focus, but Labor issues come to the fore

Anthony Albanese’s COVID-enforced isolation has given Scott Morrison the floor in election media coverage — but it has coincided with Labor’s preferred issues dominating the campaign, the latest Isentia Campaign Insights data shows.

After Albanese nearly achieved parity in media coverage last week, over the past seven days his isolation has seen him drop to around 40% of election coverage despite a flurry of television and radio interviews. Morrison sought to take advantage of Albanese’s absence from the campaign trail by minimising his exposure to criticism, refusing to hold a media conference one day and undertaking lightweight campaign events dedicated to pork-barrelling announcements in marginal seats, generating what Isentia terms “benign coverage” from the media.

But the issues Morrison was being questioned about were far less benign: the Solomons debacle, the cost of living, climate change (now moved up to number three in most covered issues), aged care and the NDIS all received significantly more coverage than the issues that play well for the Coalition: jobs, economic management or border security.

In fact, border security dropped almost entirely out of coverage, Isentia’s data shows, despite Coalition and News Corp attempts to attack Labor on the issue. But political integrity also fell away, with coverage halving compared to the previous week. Discussion of Medicare was also down. But the Solomon Islands issue just keeps generating coverage, with the volume of mentions actually increasing after last week’s leaders’ debate and sustaining that high level.

And while Albanese’s confinement to quarters was meant to showcase Labor’s frontbench talent, Josh Frydenberg was the most mentioned non-leader politician — although much of the coverage was negative as a consequence of the inflation surge and his stoush with independent challenger Monique Ryan.

Barnaby Joyce and Peter Dutton were the next most mentioned — a mixed bag for the Coalition, given its unpopularity in urban electorates — then opposition treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers. Katherine Deves continues to generate considerable media traffic, which also means a high profile for Zali Steggall. Net zero denialists Matt Canavan and Colin Boyce also garnered a strong share of mentions — also helpful for urban Liberals.

Boyce’s denialism gave him a huge lead in media coverage in his seat of Flynn compared to Labor’s Matt Burnett. In Capricornia, too, the LNP’s Michelle Landry has a big lead in media coverage over her Labor challenger. It’s much closer in Lingiari in the Northern Territory, with Labor’s Marion Scrymgour slowly accumulating share of coverage in that sea at the expense of Damian Ryan.

In Wentworth, Allegra Spender had a good week, substantially increasing her share of media coverage at Dave Sharma’s expense, especially with the Liberals’ hypocrisy on climate being illustrated by attacks on net zero by their Coalition partners. And in Kooyong, despite Frydenberg’s higher profile during the week, independent challenger Dr Monique Ryan nearly held her own, especially in her argument with Frydenberg and his media supporters over a debate. Name recognition is crucial for independents, and in both Wentworth and Kooyong, they’re getting plenty of it in the media.