In a nutshell

Before we get to Thursday, a bit of whimsy about the current election. The electorate of Eden-Monaro, adjacent to Canberra, used to be the bellwether seat. Once upon a time, not that long ago, we would all spend as much time covering the leaders bustling in and out of Eden-Monaro as we would sprinting up and down the Queensland coast. But this time, crickets. No love from the leaders. You can hear a pin drop from Queanbeyan to Eden. The bellwether action in 2019 – if in fact the bellwether conceit holds in an election likely to produce different swings in different parts of the country – has moved north-east, to the seat of Gilmore.

Speaking of north-east, that’s where the campaigns went on Thursday. Scott Morrison made his way to Cowper, where independent Rob Oakeshott is reportedly in with a good chance of snatching the seat from the Nationals. Bill Shorten took his travelling party to Brisbane, to the seat of Petrie.

Over the past week or so, if we look closely, Liberals are starting to warn voters in various key places that if they vote independent, they risk backing in a Labor government. Tony Abbott has been saying words to that effect in Warringah – you might want to punish me but if you punish me you might end up delivering government to Shorten. Morrison delivered the same message on Thursday. “The people of Cowper will decide who the next prime minister is, and only by voting for Pat Conaghan can you ensure that I, as the Liberal-National prime minister, will be able to continue in that job,” Morrison told the good people of Port Macquarie. “A vote for Rob Oakeshott is a vote for Bill Shorten, at the end of the day”.

Morrison also declared he would win the coming election, powered by the “quiet Australians”. “I think there are millions of Australian out there who between elections are not reading papers or following the political news everyday. They are too busy living their lives and fulfilling their responsibilities to others. They are caring for their parents, or they are caring for kids, or they are just being the decent, honest good hardworking Australians that they are. But they turn up every three years at elections and they take a good hard look at what the options are and they are doing that right now”.

Presumably not that quiet in the ballot box, the quiet Australians. Bit noisier there.

Elsewhere on the trail

Peter Dutton, often imagined, but rarely sighted these days outside the boundary of Dickson, returned to the national stage in order to bang the border protection drum. By Dutton’s account, Labor is in all ways suspect and terrifying when it comes to boat arrivals. In a development shocking no one, he continued this line on Thursday. Tanya Plibersek, on the ABC early on Thursday, indicated Labor would work with the United States and New Zealand to try and resettle asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island. She also appeared to put Malaysia back on the table as a third country resettlement destination, referencing an arrangement Labor tried to pursue in government that was jettisoned by the Liberals. Shorten later stepped back from Malaysia 2.0, saying he was not in government, so wasn’t pursuing anything concrete at this point. He then made way for Kristina Keneally, who had some thoughts about Dutton. The thoughts weren’t very kind. “Peter Dutton has been let out of his cave. He’s been kept underground somewhere by the Liberal-National party. But they’ve let him out of his cave to appear on national television, in fact, to travel all the way to Townsville”.

The big picture

Let’s nail this thing.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Prime Minister Scott Morrison hammers a nail at an investment property development in Port Macquarie on Thursday. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Required reading

With the furore about the Daily Telegraph’s egregious story about Bill Shorten’s mother still fresh, long time News Corp journalist Tony Koch explains why he’s cancelled his subscription to the papers he once worked for. “No editor I worked for would have put up with the biased anti-Labor rubbish that, shamefully, the papers now produce on a daily basis,” he says. Labor president Wayne Swan has some similarly robust thoughts. A deeply intriguing tale from Gabrielle Chan about the curious link between the Armidale Club fire and the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority. Read that one here, it’s a beauty. Just a different vantage point. A new poll from the Australia Institute asks voters what they want Senate crossbenchers to do with Labor’s most controversial measures if Shorten wins next weekend. Pass or block? Read the results here.

Tweet of the day

A disembodied voice from New York.

Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) The UK’s political challenges are not enviable, but at least there is longstanding bipartisan support for tackling climate change and moving to net zero emissions and, in particular, away from burning fossil fuels. https://t.co/pAqklXHkPI

What next?

Bust out the abacus. Tomorrow Labor will roll out its full campaign costings. Scott Morrison is heading to Rockhampton.