Yesterday (I am writing this article on Tuesday) saw Kim Beazley kissing a giant fish at the fish markets with him calling it "Peter Costello". That image I reckon was worth half a percentage point in popularity. But alas, when I watched channel nine at 10:30pm, they didn't show that bit. Funnily enough, it was the high brow ABC showing the visual grab. John Howard had a bad day compared to Beazley. The venue switch when announcing elderly policy took over any policy announcements Howard had to make. Maybe that's better for him given the Liberal Party's not so good policy decisions viz a viz pensioners. Below, I made a prediction that Labor would win comfortably. I based this on the assessment that most people would end up voting as the did in the Keating Hewson election. However, it all depends on how prominently Howard's GST can be put on the spotlight by the ALP. Unfortunately for Labor, they too introduced a tax that will raise only around 150 million dollars on Capital Gains. This has affected their standing in the bush due to the possible taxing of farms. Another good thing for Howard is the gas crisis in Melbourne. In a week which should be dominated by headlines of the campaign trail, a huge chunk of the news has been devoted to the crisis in Melbourne (and rightly so). This has reduced election coverage to a series of soundbites and images on the commercial networks. The crisis might work against the liberals in Victoria, but that is not likely considering Kennett's very good handling of the issue. Finally, yesterday's Four Corners interview with John Howard. Howard performed very well, but then again he was hardly challenged by the reporter except on issues of race. Comparing Howard's interview to Beazleys (taking a neutral position), it is obvious that Beazley was cross examined just as harshly (more so) as Howard was. The focus on Sham-Ho was a demonstration of the ABCs terrible editing in that piece. But why should the interviewer have ignored the race issue? It was Pauline Hanson, coupled with WIK that caused John Howard to show "leadership" by introducing a GST. In a way, the GST has saved the coalition, because if it wasn't there, they would have won comfortably, BUT One Nation's presence would also have been a lot stronger in the senate and the lower house. Tax reform takes away focus from race issues (though not in the outback). Today should bring even madder five second grabs. It all depends on the next few days if Labor will ever meet my prediction. I hope so, otherwise I will be rocked severely.

Today was dominated by the continued Liberal party scare campaign over capital gains tax. This tax will raise only 150 million dollars. Labor was stupid for introducing it, but the way they've turned it into a tax on designer shoes, jewellry, hairpieces, etc. is beyond ridiculous. However, I would just like to comment on advertising here. The coalition in this election cannot say if they lose it was because of a "scare campaign" by Labor. The coalition ads are extraordinarily scary (at least Labor's ads are done with cynicism and cleverly), reverting to the most traditional form of advertising. Notice how they use the two most important visual language pointers. RIGHT -LEFT = OLD - NEW. So, on the right, they'll tell you how bad labor was (old - and black and white) and on the left they'll point to the Liberals (new and better). The same can be said of their TOP - BOTTOM ads (top = Labor, bottom is the new). Amazingly, they're running an OPPOSITION scare campaign while they're in government. And you can tell how desperate they are that they're not even telling voters to vote Liberal, just "LABOR'S COMING" and "Don't let your preferences let Labor back in" (both with Gareth Evans doing some ridiculous dance in slow mo and with suitable dramatic music). Indeed, if the Liberals win power on Saturday it will be because their advertising has been traditional, to the point, and utterly in the 'scare campaign' mould. Labor's advertising has been too arty farty, although there are som clever ones (the one with the chewing gum and the stain on the cloathes). Another interesting point has been the remarkable rise of Beazley's popularity. So much so, that not one Liberal ad shows a picture of Kim Beazley anymore. The more they personally attack him, the more popular he seems.

Labor could be on a winner here after a report showed that up to 200 thousand jobs could go under a GST. It's obvious to me that jobs will have to go (a tax on spending reduces spending and hence jobs in the immediate term) but Labor could turn this into the final scare campaign by demanding the PM give a guarantee that jobs won't go down. Only time will tell how much play this gets on the news. So far the commercial networks are getting behind the government as they begin to realise that it is entirely possible Beazley could win. The govt has had a dream run on the capital gains issue with all the suitable conservative spin doctors in the papers telling us how it could end up being a tax on golden bricks and prize winning pigs (no wonder Keating never introduced the tax!). There's two days to go, and the swing is there for Labor. However, one good news day on Thursday or Friday for the coalition could halt that swing.

Overshadowing Kim Beazley's final speech as newsworthy on channel nine, was a ridiculous "encounter" which was supposed to demonstrate how "tensions have risen in the final days of campaigning". Some Liberal senator gate crashed the opposition leader to tell of his anger over how Labor's capital gains tax will destroy rural Australia (just wait till their already expensive goods and services have the ching ching 10% tax on it). That was slightly unfair, given that John Howard and Kim Beazley have both run very clean campaigns (without members gate crashing each other). I wonder whether a Labor senator will do the same today (thursday) outside the national press club (where Howard is going to deliver a speech). On the ABC we saw Kim Beazley's great sense of humour (his reaction to the question "are you a chick magnet?" was funny) and personability continued to shine. I'm beginning to wonder whether the ABC has gone all tabloid (Tuesday they showed the fish kissing, this time they showed the "chick magnet" question - not even channel nine showed that). Thursday and Friday is vital. Beazley needs to hit the GST from all sides (effect on jobs and how it will disadvantage most people) and can't afford one stuff up. I suggest that he lock up Gareth Evans for a few days. Gareth is too smart or naively honest to be a politician in opposition. Opinion Polls were also dominating yesterday's news, showing Howard had gotten a substantial swing back. NSW has gone all conservative. Labor only needs one or two percentage points in NSW and it's asta lavista Howard, but the newspoll (which is now one of the most accurate) has consistently shown the Labor pirmary vote not increasing in NSW. This is a worry. If Labor can't win six seats in NSW, they've lost! If there's any sign of Packers influence on the SMH, I'm not seeing it with their election coverage. If anything it's more pro labor compared to the Tele, in spite of Saturday's pro coalition editorial. The liberal ads I think have bitten in, and I get so worried every time I watched them this week (not only because they're like OPPOSITION ads - ie. the Liberals are so uncomfortable with their record in office that they have spent this entire election running basically the same ads they did in 1993). With two days to go, I'm still hoping the undecided vote will go to Labor and hence my accurate predictions - but then again, I'm up against newspoll!

PS. Can Howard have any better luck. First, the gas crisis takes away focus of news, then on Wednesday, the police killing of the fifteen year old (this proves how the govt agencies can affect news reporting - they may as well have had the police tell the story on the channel nine news!), and as of this morning (Thursday) it looks as though someone has confessed to the Arkell murder (or something like that). When is election news going to dominate the news bulletins? Am I the only one interested (that I think is a rhetorical question)? Anyway, I've had my ten minutes of fun. Have to go and write a book review on a book I haven't and don't intend to finish.