How much does a leader’s profile count in politics?

Internal polling conducted by the National Party was released, containing the unsurprising news the name of the Nationals’ leader would be a noodle-scratching poser on a trivia night down at the pub.

Some men are born anonymous, some achieve anonymity, and some have anonymity thrust upon ‘em. The Nationals’ leader seems to have managed the difficult feat of cracking the trifecta.

For the record, the Claude Rains of Australian politics, Michael McCormack, 54, is the Nationals’ leader, the deputy prime minister and minister for something or other. All right, he is the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development but there’s little point in rote learning the Morrison ministry because well, it doesn’t matter a lot now and in three months or so, it will probably not matter at all.

But it does raise an interesting question, how much does a leader’s profile count in politics? The Nats polling shows they are battling in two New South Wales seats, Page and Cowper.

One might argue that given the polling as it stands, the Nationals would be looking at losing seats anyway regardless of who was in the big chair.

My best guess is that come the election, the Nationals will lose seats across Australia but not many, at least not as many as the Liberals stand to lose in Victoria, for example. McCormack may well come out bruised, but he might be able to point to a greater cataclysm having occurred with the senior coalition partner.

In terms of profile, the Prime Minister has similar problems, especially in the southern states. We know this because several days after becoming Australia’s 30th and counting Prime Minister, Scott Morrison attended the footy finals at the MCG.

To be fair, Scott Morrison had been Prime Minister for less than a week but on the other hand, he had been Treasurer for two years, which offers a substantial crack at nationwide recognition.

In the minutes before the game kicked off, the PM bounded up to a Richmond barracker outside the massive stadium.

The Richmond man looked at the cameras filming away in the distance and at first looked hopeful, as if he had been selected from the crowd for a prize of some sort. Alas, the cameras were there only to capture the awkward moment.

“I’m Scomo,” the newly minted PM said, thrusting out a hand.

The Richmond man politely clasped Scomo’s hand but was confused and clearly had not recognised who had just assailed him.

“Good on you, mate,” he replied.

Scomo looked to linger, possibly to raise some point of policy or to give Bill Shorten a sledging, but the man in Tiger colours had better things to do and quickly strode off to take his seat and watch his beloved mob run around.

It caused me to wonder briefly if, once he had taken his seat, our Richmond man might have phoned his partner excitedly to advise he was going to appear on the news later that night.

“This bloke came up to me and shook my hand. All the telly cameras were there.”

“Who is he?”

“I have no idea.”

This amusing moment highlights the fact that not all of us are in a constant state of political arousal. Many loins will not be girded until a campaign gets well and truly underway, possibly after watching the leaders’ debates. Or perhaps not at all. Voting is mandatory or at least making an appearance at a polling booth is and many minds have not turned to how and why they will scratch away with the nub of pencil once they get there.

Polling tends not to reflect this disconnect. People answer questions that are put to them but that’s not to say they have given these matters as much serious thought as those who endlessly scrutinise polling results do.

In fact, that stilted exchange outside the ‘G’ might offer some good news for the Coalition. Our Richmond man may or may not have heard of the demise of Malcolm Turnbull but either way, he did not seem troubled by it. While he may have missed the grisly details of the week of sado-masochism the Liberals apparently had to have, this too, did not seem to cause him any great concern.

If anything, our Richmond man, registered voter and all, was really saying, “Mate, the footy is about to kick off and the Tigers are looking to go back to back (sadly for our man, they didn’t), can we talk about this in cricket season?”

I strongly suspect the polling which has put Morrison consistently ahead of Shorten as preferred PM, is more a question of name recognition where recognition is actually a negative. I venture that people know who Bill Shorten is purely because he was Labor leader at the 2016 election, an election that Labor lost.

When asked who would make a better Prime Minister, many of those lucky to be polled will hear one name they may not immediately recognise and then hear Bill Shorten’s. Being too polite to ask who the first name was again, many will nominate Shorten who they do know and don’t much care for.

Having a profile can be a negative and conversely not having one can be an advantage.

Given that if the Coalition loses just one seat, they lose government, this all appears blithely optimistic, but it does constitute much of the Coalition’s tactics and strategy as we speak. The Kill Bill blueprint has been around for a while now and has been successful to a degree. Fixating on it in an election campaign, however, is highly problematic.

Politics necessarily involves attacking one’s opponents but where it becomes a standard, one trick pony, eyes will glaze over. Worse, an obsession with the negative can push people to the other side. Leave the attacks to the advertising folk.

One thing is certain, the election is still to be won or lost. What Morrison and his ministers should concentrate on is putting forward a positive agenda going forward and pointing to their record. Don’t shout at people and for God’s sake, don’t threaten them.

You never know, the people might just like the sound of it, no matter who you are.

This column was first published on 15 February 2019