Scott Morrison Has Revealed His Campaign Bus And People Have Already Found Mistakes On It

You know when an article links out to other websites like this — and the author makes sure that the link covers just the words it intends to as otherwise it looks really weird? 

Whoever designed the Liberal Party’s campaign bus must not have been exposed to that particular frustration with modern day internet formatting, because, in bold writing across the face of the bus, a word is incorrectly formatted and it is extremely frustrating: 

After Morrison revealed the campaign bus this morning, pundits were quick to point out one more odd feature.

This is not his real signature:

As Herald Sun political reporter Rob Harris pointed out, Morrison hasn’t had a consistent signature throughout his public life.

Scott Morrison has had three signatures in three years. pic.twitter.com/IfotyR9lzU

— rob harris (@rharris334) November 4, 2018

Beyond minor errors, the appearance of the campaign bus — and the announcement that Morrison would spend the next week touring marginal Queensland seats — signifies something much more important.

An election is coming.

“The reason I’m going to be in Queensland next week is because we’re listening to Queenslanders and we are hearing Queenslanders [and hearing] about the important priorities you have,” Morrison said in a video posted online today.

He noted the government’s support for a pipeline project that Morrison says would protect Townsville’s water supply.

It is likely that the next federal election campaign will be held in March or April of next year — it essentially has to be done by 18 May next year in order to abide by the rules regarding term lengths.

The tricky issue for Morrison is that there are a bunch of state elections between now and then: Victoria goes to the polls later this month, NSW has an election in March, and after that there are heaps of public holidays and school holidays clogging the calendar.

It’s possible that Morrison is gearing up for a December election: that’s the most popular month for federal elections, but as ABC election analyst Antony Green says, “hosting elections in December has gone out of fashion”.

“Retailers complain that December elections interfere with Christmas shopping. In recent decades, the latest date used has been November 24, used by John Howard in 2007,” he added.

So if Morrison wants to, he could call an election before the end of the year — but he risks complications not only regarding retailers, but issues with staffing polling places and mobilising the Liberal party campaign infrastructure before then.

That issue of campaign infrastructure is a big one: it’s been reported that the party faces a dire campaign funding drought, and they are yet to fully preselect their candidates for the next election.

So it’s likely we’re headed for an April/May election. Pen it in your diaries. Keep your democracy sausages in the freezer. And gear up for one very long election campaign.