Workers snub Bill Shorten as Penny Wong defends not shaking a Liberal hand

Updated

Trips to industrial worksites have been like a homecoming for Bill Shorten during the election campaign.

They've given the Labor leader a chance to tap back into his union organiser roots to take his case to voters.

Fittingly, on the 13th anniversary of the Beaconsfield mine disaster, an event that turned Mr Shorten into a national identity, he again returned to a worksite to rally the troops.

This time though it wasn't Tasmania but the marginal Liberal-held Queensland seat of Bonner.

All had gone well until it was time to leave, when Mr Shorten approached two workers on his way to his bus.

His hand outstretched, he stepped in, only for it to be left hanging as the high-vis-wearing worker stared it down.

Undeterred, Mr Shorten tried again with another worker. Within seconds it was 0-2.

Handshakes, or a lack thereof, have proved a talking point of the election campaign in recent days.

While appearing at the same event as Mr Shorten, Penny Wong fronted the cameras to explain why she'd left Liberal Simon Birmingham hanging just a day earlier.

She was disappointed, she said, that he'd opted to make a partisan point about China rather than speaking in the national interest.

"We've got a good relationship. We've had robust exchanges over the years," Senator Wong insisted.

"We live in Adelaide and you know how to deal with it.

"He hasn't asked for an apology and I wouldn't expect him to do so."

Liberal making a Grindr appearance

A gay dating app is likely the last place a Liberal candidate expected to end up when the federal election campaign started.

Come Friday though, Gurpal Singh will have his face plastered across ads on Grindr as Labor seeks to use his comments to target voters in three inner-Melbourne electorates.

The campaign is based on comments he made during an SBS Radio interview in 2017, in which he linked same-sex marriage to paedophilia.

The Grindr ad will also run on Instagram and feature the Scullin candidate and part of a newspaper article reporting on his remarks.

The ads won't run in the safe Labor electorate he's seeking but rather in the Melbourne electorates of Macnamara, Higgins and Kooyong.

Labor will also release Facebook ads attacking another Victorian Liberal, candidate for Chisholm Gladys Liu, who the ALP has accused of expressing anti-gay sentiments.

The Greens, which are keen to win Higgins, are no strangers to using Grindr.

At the last federal election the Greens ran ads on the platform in Melbourne.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who just a week ago warned "the standard you walk by is the standard you accept", on Wednesday said Mr Singh's pre-selection was secure.

Peter Dutton heads north to attack Labor

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has had a low-key role on the national level during the campaign to date.

Get a wrap of the key stories and analysis from the ABC's chief politics writer Annabel Crabb. Sign up

View Privacy Policy More Newsletters Download the ABC News app

He's in a battle to retain Dickson, his marginal seat in Brisbane, but found time to head north with a message for the voters in the even more marginal Herbert.

"If people think that you can vote for the Labor party and get tough borders at this election, you are dead wrong," Mr Dutton warned.

"If they are elected into government and they bring people en masse from Nauru and Manus, I promise you the boats will restart," he added later.

That prompted Mr Shorten to accuse the Coalition of launching a scare campaign on border protection, insisting there's no difference between the two parties' policies.

Labor and the Coalition both support offshore processing on Manus Island and Nauru.

The Opposition has criticised the Government for not striking deals for the asylum seekers on those islands to be resettled in a third country.

Mr Shorten said he would support the Coalition's resettlement deal with the United States and would consider one proposed for New Zealand.

"What we don't believe in, is keeping people in semi-indefinite detention," he said.

Who would oversee that policy for Labor remains unclear, with Mr Shorten refusing to confirm who would be his Home Affairs Minister if elected.

The seats shaping the election

Missing minister campaigning in the west

Forget Carmen Sandiego, the question that has been on the lips of many in federal politics is "where in the world is Melissa Price?"

The Environment Minister has largely been absent from the campaign, repeatedly refusing media requests.

The Prime Minister insists she's busy canvassing votes in her vast WA electorate, Durack, which takes in two-thirds of the state across more than 1.6 million square kilometres.

The Perth-based MP holds the safe Liberal seat with a margin of 11 per cent but, according to Mr Morrison, she's too busy getting re-elected to be campaigning with him.

"She doesn't take that for granted," Scott Morrison said.

"My ministers don't take their electorates for granted either. That's where they are campaigning. That's what they should be doing.

"I don't need people to prop me up at press conferences. Bill Shorten seems to need that."

Keen to prove she's out campaigning, Ms Price posted a photo on her Facebook page handing out how-to-vote cards.

She also appeared alongside fellow WA Liberal Steve Irons in a video he posted on Facebook on Wednesday.

Ms Price is yet to agree to an ABC radio or television interview about a United Nations report that warned 1 million of the world's species are now under threat of extinction.

Mr Morrison on Wednesday night guaranteed she would remain in her role if the Coalition is re-elected.

There's nine days to go.

Topics: government-and-politics, federal-elections, liberal-national-party, liberals, alp, scott-morrison, bill-shorten, australia

First posted