Gerry Wood
On the surface at least, nothing much has changed since my first two reports on the forthcoming Northern Territory election. The mainstream media campaign is very quiet indeed, even though it’s now less than 5 weeks until polling day. Almost certainly the parties are saving their money for an ad blitz in the last 3-4 weeks, probably with most concentrated in the last fortnight after the end of the London Olympics. By all accounts both parties are fairly well cashed up. Labor spin doctors make no secret of that claim, while it’s strongly rumoured that the CLP campaign is being heavily bankrolled by eccentric Queensland billionaire Clive Palmer.
However the dearth of MSM coverage certainly doesn’t mean the parties aren’t out there campaigning for all they’re worth. It’s just that they’re doing it overwhelmingly by “under the radar” targetted direct marketing techniques now typical of modern political campaigning. Swinging voters in marginal seats are carefully targetted for intensive campaign contact through a combination of doorknock visits, phone canvassing, direct mail, email and SMS. This contact is largely invisible to the media and other observers and almost by definition impossible for the Electoral Commission to monitor or regulate effectively even if it had the power to do so. These tactics allow the major parties to deliver powerful negative “attack” messages to voters considered most likely to be susceptible to them, without running the risk of alienating safe supporters or galvanising safe voters for one’s opponent. The Territory’s tiny electorates of less than 4000 voters are ideal for this sort of targetted “under the radar” campaigning.
I was asked by the ABC last week to comment on reports that the ALP was allegedly “push polling” in the suburb of Millner, part of the Labor electorate currently held by retiring Minister Dr Chris Burns. The seat has been rendered vulnerable by the loss of Burns’ incumbency so it’s hardly surprising that Labor is fighting hard to retain it. Incidentally the tactics as reported to me by the ABC didn’t amount to push polling although they were clearly fairly nasty targetted direct “attack” marketing techniques of the type described above.
On the conservative side legendary federal “black arts” guru Mark Textor has apparently been in Darwin for at least a couple of weeks orchestrating the Country Liberals’ campaign, as has the new Queensland wunderkind James McGrath, former Liberal federal deputy director, LNP campaign manager at the recent Queensland state election and advisor to London lord mayor Boris Johnson. McGrath was also in the news recently in a slightly different context when he nominated (along with Mal Brough) for LNP preselection for the federal seat of Fisher, currently held by beleaguered Speaker Peter Slipper.
It may or may not be coincidental in those circumstances that the major apparent manifestation of CLP “attack” campaigning to date has been a “smear campaign” spreading four year old “sexual harassment” allegations against Darwin rural Independent Gerry Wood, whose vote keeps the minority Labor government in office.