In a nutshell

You only need to know one thing about the election campaign at the moment: neither side thinks the voters are listening this week, and the working supposition is voters probably won’t start to listen properly until after Anzac Day. That resting assumption explains why the contest is circling in a confined space.

Right now, it’s a battle of low stakes. Scott Morrison is experimenting with ways of disrupting Bill Shorten’s opening pitch, and Shorten is trying to convey a sense that he’s the incumbent, projecting a preternatural calm, inviting Morrison to go negative.

Labor on Tuesday wanted to talk about a new analysis from the Grattan Institute, published by the Australian Financial Review, suggesting the government would need to cut spending by $40bn a year if it was to deliver stages two and three of its tax cut plan and stay in surplus.

Given the potential for this analysis to be marketed by the quick quotes quill division of Labor HQ as the Coalition’s top secret plan to cut spending after the election, the Coalition was intent on pushing the campaign conversation in another direction. Not just pushing. Shoving is more accurate.

Morrison enjoyed a pitstop with a friendly group of seniors in the marginal seat of Corangamite, shot some pool, and then grabbed a brain fade culminating in a loose answer from the Labor leader, and kicked it forward neatly in time for the TV news.

During his campaign event in the seat of Boothby earlier in the day, Shorten told journalists he had “no plans” to increase taxes on superannuation, apparently forgetting that Labor did, in fact, have plans to increase taxes on superannuation.

Morrison told reporters Shorten was seeking to put so much tax on the Australian economy, “he’s now started to forget how much tax he’s put on, particularly on superannuation”.

The prime minister wanted everyone to be clear he empathised with Shorten’s struggle. “$387bn is a lot of tax to try and get your head around. Clearly, he can’t get his head around it. If he can’t explain it, why would you vote for him?”

Just for the record, Morrison’s $387bn figure, sold initially by the government as a Treasury number, is express from Josh Frydenberg’s calculator.

Elsewhere on the trail

Being campaign spokesman has a simple job description: internalise the talking points, be Eddie Everywhere, and don’t do your block. Simon Birmingham, the Coalition’s genial spokesrobot for 2019, has been working assiduously to hit his KPIs, and so it was on Tuesday, when he fronted up for a conversation with Jon Faine on ABC radio Melbourne. If you live outside of Melbourne, all you need to know is Faine can be, well, a bit prickly. “Hello John, good to be with you,” Birmingham said, presumably hoping the next 10 minutes would be something other than a car crash. Faine ignored the pleasantries and opened by asking what Birmingham would say to voters in Liberal heartland currently intent on shunning the government. Birmingham ploughed on. “Well I urge them to reconsider and to think carefully about the choices they will face at this election.” Faine: “But they’ve already done that. That’s why they’re thinking of changing.” Birmingham: “There are nearly five weeks still until polling day, and I would urge people to think carefully about that choice.” Already, we’d reached peak Faine: “Well that’s kind of meaningless. Well, what do you say to them might change their mind?” Birmingham: “Well thank you.” And so it continued.

The big picture

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Scott Morrison at a public forum with senior citizens at the Springdale Hall in Drysdale near Geelong on Tuesday. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Required reading

The Liberal candidate for Chisholm, Gladys Liu, has responded to criticism about comments she made in a 2016 interview with Guardian Australia in which she said Chinese-Australians viewed LGBT issues as “ridiculous rubbish”, saying they do not reflect her own views. Another Liberal MP, Jason Wood, handed a $1.5m novelty cheque to a local sports club while the deputy prime minister was privately warning it not to spend the money because it was yet to go through due diligence and final approval. A new analysis from the Grattan Institute says the Morrison government would need to cut spending by about $40bn a year by 2030 to afford its big personal income tax cuts and deliver on its budget surplus forecasts. Outside the campaign, how do we measure poverty, and what are we really talking about? Guardian Australia columnist Greg Jericho gives you a rich picture using charts.

Tweet of the day

Alex Ellinghausen (@ellinghausen) Campaign oysters

Westfield Marion shopping centre, SA pic.twitter.com/xikAOYiNYP

When the answer to “would you like an oyster” should be no, but circumstances demand a yes.

What next?

Bill Shorten is tracking west. After two days in Melbourne and surrounds, Scott Morrison is due for a change of scenery. We also expect the pre-election fiscal outlook to arrive on Wednesday afternoon. This is a budget update released independent of government by the secretaries of Treasury and finance.