… we’d love to see an even worse one!

Only Australia’s No1 family newszine The Bug will keep you up-to-speed with each and every day of the campaign though the cutting-edge analysis of our in-house political experts, how the mainstream mediocre is behaving and a close watch on poll trends and betting markets.

Whether Friday’s events on the hustings were the FIFTEETH day of the election campaign – as The Bug believes it was – or the FOURTEENTH, as the mainstream media who were taught different basic arithmetic at state school say it was – let’s all agree that today, Saturday, ends the full second week of this thing.

So the big question is this: which major side of politics fared better in Week Two.

We thought we’d kick off that debate with the opinion of the ABC’s political lead, David Speers, who excitingly declared that Dutton had put in a better performance these past seven days. Debatable, but note how he avoids having to admit that, basically, it was another horror show from the LNP. It’s true that a state school team that lost 60-0 last week but registered a 60-6 loss this week has improved but parents are unlikely to start booking grand-final seats, are they?

The Bug will stick with the view that Dutts and his duddsers had a week as bad, if not worse, than week one. Walk-backs over their meagre policy offerings; trouble with candidates in some must win/must keep seats. Different messages over quitting or staying in the Paris climate agreement. Dutton still busy trying to distance himself from Trump yet incapable of resisting making Trumpish statements, including suggesting Anthony Albanese was a criminal who deserved to be in jail.

What campaign week were you looking at, David Speers?

So, did anything else happen on DAY FIFTEEN, Friday, April 11?

***

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spent yesterday in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

In WA he was photographed at a Rio Tinto export facility in Karratha – as seen in the AAPO pic below – where a shipment of iron ore bound for Chinas was being loaded.

The event was apparently designed to underline the PM’s economic credentials but The Bug also suggests that the photo-op might also remind voters that despite both sides of politics giving lip service over the past 40 years to the need to expand Australia’s industrial and manufacturing capacity, we are still basically a deluded self-satisfied quarry shovelling valuable resources into ships for processing by other countries into goods we buy back at vastly inflated prices.

Perhaps a tariff or two or three hundred are in order?

***

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was in Melbourne where it was noted he made his seventh visit in two weeks to a service station to again highlight his policy to suspend the federal fuel tax for 12 months and axe the penalties the Albanese Government plans to impose on cars that don’t meet fuel efficiency standards.

Reporters travelling with Dutton asked if the two policies were blatant grabs for the votes of unthinking right-wing male yobbos and bogans needing to mask their inadequacies by driving tank-size vehicles occupied most of the time by them alone and which damage roads and add enormously to vehicle emissions that are aggravating climate change. (main picture)

“Yes, it is a win-win indeed as you say,” Dutton replied.

***

The Opposition Leader did make a gaffe during his Melbourne visit when quizzed about the mish-mash of ideas that have so far constituted his “policy” on reducing the Commonwealth public service through natural attrition and voluntary redundancies.

Mr Dutton began speaking at length about his Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor when asked by a reporter to explain who might be classed as redundant.

A staffer for Dutton later explained that the Opposition Leader had been caught off guard.

“Mr Dutton responded to the question in a frank and honest way,” the staffer said. “You can be assured that will not happen again.”

***

No new polls overnight so our two-party-preferred averages of the five opinion polls we’re now keeping an eye on – Newspoll, Resolve, Roy Morgan, YouGov and Redbridge – remained Labor’s way …

Labor: 52 (was 51.7); Coalition 48 (was 48.3). Labor in 2022 got a parliamentary majority by the slenderest of margins on a similar 2PP.

As mentioned before, Guardian‘s Essential Poll thinks it’s professional or clever or somehow responsible not to publish a two-party-preferred figure. The Bug again calls bullshit on that. Nevertheless, its latest primary figures suggest however a slight Labor lead.

***

And how did the online bookies react to all that money flowing the LNP’s way after another brilliant day for Dutton and Co, according to just about every “journo” at Newcorpse and many other MSM platforms too.

Here are the odds we snared at around 9.30pm last night (Friday), compared with 24 hours earlier. And, yes, we’ve added another betting agency to those we are monitoring! We’re now giving a nod to neds!

Sportsbet: Labor $1.29 ($1.31 ); Coalition $3.66 ($3.55)
Ladbrokes: Labor $1.28 ($1.36); Coalition $3.70 ($3.19)
TAB: Labor $1.26 (unchanged); Coalition $3.80 (unchanged)
bet365: Labor $1.28 (unchanged) Coalition $3.75 (unchanged).
neds: Labor $1.28 Coalition $3.70.

The Bug knows fuck all about how bets are framed but if this trend continues and the LNP drifts into the $4 plus range (as it did briefly the other day with one of the above) is it all over bar the shouting?

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