In a nutshell

Scott Morrison went south. Bill Shorten went west. What the leaders did and said on the hustings today doesn’t matter as much as logging their respective locations.

Both leaders, in the warm-up phase of hostilities, are constructing their respective pathways to victory. The Liberals are eyeing three seats in Tasmania and Labor is eyeing anything between two and five seats in the west. If you want to read the tea leaves of the campaign, it’s often best to look at what leaders do rather than what they say.

Some Liberals think the marginal seats in Tasmania’s north, Bass and Braddon, could fall the government’s way on 18 May. Remember: the government has to gain territory in this election contest in order to stand still, because the Morrison government fell into minority status when it lost Wentworth last year, and various redistributions have not been favourable. The sum of all that is that gains in Tasmania would be very handy for Morrison.

State of play: interactive map of seat margins before the 2019 Australian election Read more

In the west, Labor has eyes on Swan and Hasluck, and is hopeful of picking up Pearce and Stirling. Labor spies in the west report the field campaign in Pearce, held by the attorney general, Christian Porter, is in the top two or three ALP field campaigns in the country in terms of voter contacts. That means massive phone-banking and door-knocking and the like. Labor is also devoting some resources to Canning, although picking up that one is regarded as an outside chance.

Just for the record, let’s whip through the campaign day quickly. Labor stuck with health. The Coalition promised money for irrigation. Bill Shorten delivered a mea culpa for messing up on Tuesday during questions about Labor’s superannuation policy. Scott Morrison inspected carrots and said vote one Coalition, and Shorten’s shifty. Treasury and finance released an updated economic forecast, the major parties continued to trade blows about whether spending cuts would be required to afford stages two and three of the government’s tax cuts and whether Labor should cost its climate policy. To round things off, Josh Frydenberg got cranky with GetUp for telling voters in Kooyong he was part of the plot against Malcolm Turnbull, when there is no evidence he was.

Elsewhere on the trail

Frequent #auspol flyers will know that the Queensland National George Christensen has created some controversy about his trips to the Philippines. A new story in the Herald Sun on Wednesday reported Christensen billed taxpayers $3,000 for domestic flights to international airports so he could fly to the Philippines to see his fiancee. This new nugget of information prompted the shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, to brand Christensen “the member for south Manila” at a campaign event in Perth. Christensen insists his travel is within the rules, but to eliminate any doubt, he has referred the trips to the parliamentary expenses authority “so this issue does not distract from the things which matter to Dawson – like Labor/Greens attacks on coal mining jobs, farming and fishing”. One suspects the member’s taxpayer-funded travel may also be of interest, but we’ll all find out how interested they are next month.

The big picture

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mind the carrots. Scott Morrison at the Premium Fresh farm outside Devonport. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Required reading

With water allocations a huge issue in some parts of the country, Anne Davies reports that mystery still surrounds the reason the former agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce chose the companies he did for almost $200m of water buybacks in 2017, despite questions in the Senate, calls for papers and freedom of information requests. More than a few voters concerned about the forward-leaning strategy of the major parties with postal votes have been in touch with Guardian Australia. Helen Davidson wonders whether many voters, particularly older people, are fully aware they are sending their forms back to political parties rather than the Australian Electoral Commission. And there are questions about what the parties are doing with the information they pick up. Up north, Queensland National Michelle Landry doesn’t know how much Adani has donated to her campaign, and in this commentary, we look behind Scott Morrison’s talking point about the fair go.

Tweet of the day

A dispatch from New York. Gone, but never forgotten.

Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) Day Seven of the Campaign and the Murdoch Party still working hard for Morrison their coalition partner. pic.twitter.com/IIu0DNQV3M

What next?

Bill Shorten will track back east on Thursday, most likely to the Northern Territory, and stick with health as his theme. Scott Morrison is off to a pub in Devonport on Wednesday evening, and is likely to stay put in Tasmania on Thursday.