YOU might think the 2016 election has been a bit of a snooze-fest, but when you look back on it, during the 853 million days or so of the campaign, there have actually been dozens of moments that are mildly interesting.

And with the polls on a knife-edge, this election is promising to have a nail-biting finale. It’s a bit like the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy — the first nine hours were painfully boring to watch but the end made it almost worth it.

We’ve listened to the politicians, and now it’s their turn to listen to us. And so, with the least important part left to go — the actual voting — it’s time to crack open a $5 bottle of Australian sparkling wine from Aldi and hand out the Newsie Awards for the best and worst bits on the campaign.

BEST AD

Winner: GetUp

Whether you hate them or love them, hands down the best ad of the campaign was GetUp’s posters placed throughout the seat of Wentworth. If you haven’t seen them yet, they’re worth checking out.

Underneath Turnbull’s own posters, GetUp put up posters perfectly aligned to make it look like Turnbull was crossing his fingers on Climate Change promises.

The runner up for best ad goes, as always, to the Australian Sex Party. We won’t link to it here — instead, you can have extra fun Googling around for that one.

WORST AD

Winner: Fake Tradie (of course)

While some say the Fake Tradie ad was woeful, it turned out the Fake Tradie was actually a real tradie. But that was the problem. By being a real tradie, he didn’t have the acting skills to appear to be a genuine tradie.

Ironically, the ad would have worked much better if he’d been a paid actor.

BEST USE OF HIJACK MARKETING

Winner: Bob Katter

Donald Trump has proved conclusively that in politics any publicity is good publicity, and that the best way to generate publicity is to step on a landmine, and then everyone will pay attention to you when it explodes.

Bob Katter took that lesson to a whole new level during the campaign.

You may have heard about Bob Katter’s bizarre ad — in which he kills two people with a gun to prevent them from selling Australia. You may have even seen the ad. And that’s the whole point.

By releasing it two days after the Orlando shooting, in which a gunman killed 49 people and injured 53 others, Katter leveraged the huge publicity surrounding guns and shootings.

Twitter went crazy. The tabloids had a field day. It was hijack marketing at its finest.

Sure it was tasteless, but it was textbook Trump.

Congratulations, Mr Katter. As Zaphod Beeblebrox might say, 10 out of 10 for hijack marketing, but minus several million for integrity.

BEST GAFFE

Winner: David Feeney

While Barnaby Joyce was always favourite for this award, this year he was pipped at the post by Finance Minister Mathias Cormann assuring the Australian public that Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was “very caring and very much in touch.”

Perhaps confusing Shorten with Turnbull, he went on to say that Bill was “every single day promoting our national economic plan for jobs and growth, which of course is exactly what Australia needs.”

However, days later Cormman himself was pipped at the post by Labor’s David Feeney who had accidentally forgotten about a $2.3 million house in Northcote that he owned and failed to declare. It’s easy to forget these things. We’ve all been there.

MOST ANNOYING CAMPAIGN TOOL

Winner: Robo-calls

If you didn’t receive a robo-call from a candidate during the election campaign, don’t take it personally, it’s simply because a computer somewhere doesn’t think you’re worth talking to.

This year robo-calls have gone from obscure tactic that desperate Northern Territorian politicians do to smear their opponents to respectable campaign tool that all political parties use to make sure you can’t finish your dinner uninterrupted.

Both parties appear to have deployed new geo-location technology that allows for personalised timing of the calls.

The Labor Party’s robo-calls have been timed to exactly coincide with the exact moment that your roast chicken is about to go cold, whereas the Liberals have gone for the more traditional time of whenever the results for that night’s episode of MasterChef is being announced.

MOST ANNOYING — SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Winner: Malcolm Turnbull

While Robo-calls were annoying, the Special Achievement Award has to go to Malcolm Turnbull for holding an election in the middle of winter, in the middle of school holidays.

While you might feel cold and bitter while you’re voting, spare a thought for the poor voters in Turnbull’s own electorate of Wentworth, who will need to charter helicopters down from their chalets at Perisher in order to vote.

BEST OVERSIZED NOVELTY PROP

Winner: Who do you reckon?

There can only ever be one winner in this category. In fact, this award was invented specifically for Nick Xenophon. The award itself is an oversized novelty cardboard cut-out of Nick Xenophon Ego. It’s very big.

BEST ELECTION ISSUE

Winner: The ABCC

It’s the issue on everyone’s lips. The issue that made a double disillusion election in the dead of winter necessary. Sorry, what does ‘ABCC’ stand for again?

BEST POLICY

Winner: Laser-guided oyster shuckers

Earlier this week, in a last-ditch attempt to woo the crucial oyster eaters vote (a core constituency for the Coalition), the Coalition’s Assistant Minister for Agriculture Anne Ruston announced $236,000 to build laser guided robots to shuck oysters.

We’re not making this up.

This was the perfect policy for the Coalition. It’s got everything that Turnbull loves. Innovation, oysters, even frickin’ lasers baby. The coalition deserves to be returned in a landslide simply for this one policy.

Apparently Malcolm Turnbull is now keen for scientists to get it to be able to open a bottle of Moet as well.

MOST AWKWARD MOMENT ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

Winner: Colin Barnett

There have been several embarrassing moments in this election (most of them involving Chris Jermyn) but nothing can beat — nor will ever beat — Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett asking for $3 change from a homeless man.

Mr Barnett bought a copy of the latest Big Issue from a street vendor, and then commenced on what is almost certainly the 10 seconds of the most excruciating footage you will ever see.

Mr Barnett extends his arm. The homeless man shakes Mr Barnett’s arm, and then Mr Barnett withdraws his hand, stands there.

“OK are you going to give me my $3 change?” he asks. And then the homeless man digs around in his jeans to scrape together $3.



WA Premier Colin Barnett buys The Big Issue WA Premier Colin Barnett asks for change from The Big Issue. Courtesy: Nine News

After seeing the footage, it suddenly all makes sense why the Barnett’s Liberal Party is facing a 10 per cent swing against it on Saturday.

GOLD NEWSIE FOR BEST LIE

Winner: Both sides

There were so many to choose from in this category.

If you believe Labor, you’d think that people will be dying on the street from the common cold if the Libs get in. If you believe the Coalition, you’d think that we’ll all be forced to marry unionised donkeys if the Labor and the Greens form government.

But the biggest lie in this election has been one that neither party has been willing to call.

On Wednesday, Scott Morrison proudly boasted that he’d found another $1.1 billion in budget savings over the next four years by finding $1.1 billion in the welfare system. He then went on to claim that this demonstrated that the Coalition were the better economic managers.

The fundamental lie here is a simple one. The idea that, in the grand scheme of things, $1.1 billion matters over four years is complete nonsense — and both sides know it, but neither is willing to say it.

Over the next four years, the government’s total expenditure will be around $1.1 trillion. That makes $1.1 billion less than a rounding error. It’s like boasting that a instead of paying $10 for lunch, you’ve only paid $9.99, and then claiming that whoever reckons lunch will cost about $10 in four years time is reckless and chaotic.

So there you have it. That’s the Newsie Awards for 2016. If you’re planning on voting this weekend, here’s a hot tip: I always find that the queues are much shorter on Sunday.

Disclaimer: You have until 6pm Saturday to vote.

Charles Firth is editor of The Chaser Quarterly and brother to former NSW Labor minister Verity Firth. The election issue is out now.