“I am going to cop it in the neck.”Ī chat with some Chinese-born Australians at the church for the Cantonese service – the seat is almost one-fifth Chinese-Australians – also revealed many were deeply disturbed by the Morrison government’s rhetoric on China. “We’ve got some very strong Labor supporters” at the church, Danes said. Once Morrison was gone, Danes quietly told me that, although he would never turn down a visit from the leader of the nation, he would face blowback for doing so. Pastor Chris Danes explained what an honour, and a nightmare, hosting a prime ministerial election campaign visit was. Scott Morrison (centre) and Gladys Liu (right) talk with Syndal Baptist Church pastor Chris Danes on Good Friday. It was a fascinating ride, seeing how the major parties targeted voters.Īt a bustling Baptist church in Syndal on Good Friday I met journalists travelling with Morrison and, after they left with the then PM, I hung back for a couple of hours chatting with the pastor and his congregation. While the leaders and my media colleagues jetted around the country, I took the more mundane daily train trip to Box Hill, Mount Waverley or Glen Waverley, then travelled by Uber to every main street of Chisholm not serviced by train (again, except for Wheelers Hill, for which I repeat my apology).
When the election was called on April 10, The Age’s coverage was on the bigger picture of what was unfolding nationally, but it was also in these seats. What do the parties know about you through their data sources? How do issues like national security, climate change and the cost of living play out in Melbourne’s suburbs? What are the local issues that matter? Our on-the-ground reporting – 20,000 words of which you can read below – tried to bring to life the issues that mattered locally in all their complexity.įormer PM John Howard campaigning in Glen Waverley with former Chisholm MP Gladys Liu.
We wanted to find out whether marginal campaigning worked. Our coverage was an attempt to focus on precisely what happens in a marginal seat over the length of an election campaign. I failed to visit Wheelers Hill on days candidates were there, I was elsewhere in the seat, trying to find other stories in other suburbs.
0 kommentar(er)
