Scare campaigns are ugly, they're unoriginal, but, done well, they're effective. They work because of an innate irrationality in the human condition. Tragedy ... a boat carrying asylum seekers sinks off Christmas Island in 2010. Credit:Nine News A pair of Israeli psychologists, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, won the Nobel prize in economics in 2002 for their developing something called "prospect theory". By studying people's choices in placing hundreds of different bets, they proved that humans respond more strongly to the prospect of loss than to the possibility of gain. By a factor of more than two-to-one. We are deeply risk-averse, and will strive to prevent loss much more energetically than we chase gain. So far this year, the government has two scare campaigns running against Labor. The first says that Labor will destroy the economy. The one it launched this week says Labor will throw the coastline open to boatloads of asylum seekers.

Loading To drive the argument home, the government announced it was reopening the Christmas Island detention centre for asylum seekers, a facility it closed in October. Reopening seems tantamount to an invitation. "What for?" posed Labor's Anthony Albanese. "They're using taxpayers' money to promote their fear campaign." But of course. It's the government's only hope of holding power. The more intriguing question is whether this particular issue will work for the Liberals at this particular election. Can Morrison pull off an election win based on fear and xenophobia? We know that the boats issue is already working for the Morrison government in three ways.

First, the mere fact that it's the big political story of the week helps the Coalition. How?

"It's a territory game," explains Labor's former star qualitative pollster, Tony Mitchelmore of the research firm Visibility. "When you ask people in focus groups, 'Who do you trust to manage Australia's borders?', they say they trust the Coalition. So the Coalition wants people talking about the economy and boats because this is their favoured territory." Even when the Coalition is blatantly scaremongering, ignoring the facts, even being caught red-handed misrepresenting Labor's policy? Yes indeed. "As long as you are on that territory, it doesn't matter what you say because it's their area of advantage." A member of the Howard government's inner circle recalled this week that the Howard crew didn't mind the weeks of saturation coverage of even the ugliest aspects of the asylum seeker dramas of that time, such as the "children overboard" episode: "We didn't really enjoy it but we didn't mind it because however bad it was, it was our territory." And so long as the airwaves are full of talk about boats, there is no room for talk of Labor's areas of advantage – health, education, the environment, fairness. That's why the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, doggedly used question time this week to try to change the subject. He accused the government of being soft on the banks. And he kept asking the Liberals to explain why Malcolm Turnbull was no longer prime minister. Second, the boats scare works for Morrison because it activates his own supporters: "The main result will be that where Turnbull alienated the Liberal 'base', Morrison is sending signals that they can come home again," says a former Liberal strategist. Which is important for mobilising the party's supporters, donors and volunteers.

Third, the boats policy is a divisive one within the Labor Party. The Labor left faction favours a more compassionate treatment of asylum seekers. The right has largely prevailed in demanding that Labor largely mimic the Coalition to shut down the entire debate. How will voters see them? Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten. Credit:AAP "Tactically, you are looking for something to unsettle Labor," says a veteran Liberal. "But these advantages for Morrison don't, in themselves, amount to a winning edge." "The boats issue represents an opportunity for Morrison, but whether it's enough to win the election is an entirely different question," a Liberal strategist says. What would it take to mimic John Howard's "Tampa moment" and turn refugees on boats into an election-winning issue, or to follow Tony Abbott's successful campaigning to "stop the boats"?

First and fundamentally, are the people listening?

"That's their main problem," says Mitchelmore. "People being bothered to listen." The steadiness of the polls for the past 2½ years suggests an electorate that has switched off and made up its mind.

Labor and Liberal strategists alike agree that there is no sign that the voters are listening to anything the government says. "Everyone in Canberra is excited looking for some tricky issue or tricky angle," says a well regarded Liberal campaign adviser. "At the end of the day, they knocked off two of their own f---ing leaders – everyone in Canberra seems to have forgotten that." Mitchelmore, who no longer does any work for the Labor Party, once again: "The government's biggest problem is itself. Bill Shorten just needs to keep the government the story." A senior Liberal agrees wholeheartedly: "The big indulgence of the government is that it's spent years talking about itself – Tony Abbott, Barnaby Joyce, Malcolm Turnbull, the 'base', all summer spent talking about whether there's enough women in the party, and now Christopher Pyne talking about his feelings for Malcolm Turnbull. That's death." Second, even if the government can get the electorate's attention, there's a further question. Does the subject of refugee boats still work? Is it still a powerful vote-decider?

While it helped Howard win the 2001 election, he didn't revisit the boats issue again in the 2007 campaign. Why not? It had lost its power. Howard had stopped the boats. Just as the Coalition stopped the boats this time around. A veteran of the Howard team explains what it would take to give the boats issue its power again: "It's a latent issue, akin to interest rates. When rates are low and steady, rising interest rates are not an issue. But when a rise is imminent, it's instantly an issue." To transform it from latent to actual, "you need a clear and present danger – you have to contemplate that threat as being immediate," he says. That's the reason the government has announced the reopening of the Christmas Island detention centre, to heighten the sense of imminent threat. But this former Howard adviser thinks this tactic animates only the media and the political class: "That's to get media attention – the punters don't know what 'Christmas Island' is supposed to conjure up, the assumption that all these terms have relevance in the real world is ridiculous." In 2007, Howard, instead of boats, tried to fire emotions by taking tough action on another racially charged policy. He announced the army intervention into the Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory.

Mitchelmore was the qualitative pollster for Kevin Rudd's 2007 campaign victory. He offers a tip for Shorten on how to respond to Morrison's manoeuvres today: "We just characterised it as desperate. We characterised just about everything he did as desperate. We played the man, not the issue." It worked. A current Labor strategist sets out a campaigning fundamental: "The question is, do you take the bait, or do you change the subject?" Labor will continue trying to change the subject, taking the campaign onto its own territory. And the government will do everything in its power to bring the campaign back to boats, even if it finds that it is changing no votes. As the independent polling expert John Stirton points out: the first time in the modern era, since World War II, that an unpopular opposition leader won an election was Abbott in 2013. Because the people couldn't bring themselves to vote for the Labor government again. "We are heading towards doing the same thing for only the second time. Because the idea of returning the government is just so unappealing."

Morrison's job for the next three months is to make Labor look even more unappealing than his own government. He will not stop trying. Peter Hartcher is political editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.