2004 Federal Election Diary A Call from the PM

7th October, 2004  - Richard Farmer 
You know you live in a marginal electorate when you get a call from the Prime Minister soliciting your vote. Well I live in Eden Monaro which has been won by the Party which forms the government at every election since a major boundary reshuffle in 1972. And when the phone rang this morning it was John Howard on the line.
After a short pause to allow the recorded message to click in to action, John told me why I should be voting for the Liberal candidate Gary Nairn. And all I could think about was how much this kind of campaigning must be costing. The betting odds and the polls might be saying that the Government is a shoo-in to win on Saturday but no expense is being spared to ensure that is the case. This week I have had a letter from the PM’s mate Senator Bill Heffernan, one from Mr Nairn, an interest rate calculator courtesy of the Liberal Party and an important message about how to vote from the same man who made the phone call. Add it all up and the cost of reaching me this week would leave no change out of $5 or $6. Multiply that by the 80,000 enrolled voters and that’s $500,000 for the week without counting the full page ad in the Eden Magnet and the barrage of television spots. Not a thing in the mail box from the Labor Party. Perhaps they have decided that there’s no point spending money in a timber town after Mark Latham came out so strongly against logging in old growth forests.
From glug

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is Scott Morrison getting ahead of Malcolm Turnbull in the GST debate?

Prime Minister Scott Morrison under pressure as the question about knowledge of a rape gets embarrassing

Remembering that Labor only lost last time because of Bill Shorten