- Election 2016: Full coverage
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The „street walk”, as it is known to those in the biz, is perhaps the riskiest piece of campaign theatre.
It’s the plainest measure of a politician’s name-recognition and ability to interact with human beings in the wild.
There may be no better test than Campbelltown’s Queen Street, which is long, wide and lined with potential hazards for members of the political class.
Julie Bishop strode it with consummate ease on Thursday, demonstrating that even to those outside the Liberal base, she is the party’s shiniest star.
Nathan Stanley, 28, a local and tender of an impressive rat’s-pony tail hybrid, pulled an obliging Foreign Minister aside for a tete-a-tete away from the cameras.
„I basically told her about the area,” he told Fairfax Media. „Just about how bad it is. I said ‘people get shot around here, this is not one of them areas you play games in'”.
The Foreign Minister’s face betrayed no sense of the grave subject matter. Mr Stanley declared himself a big fan. But would it be enough to make him consider switching away from Labor?
„Of course!,” he said. „My nan votes Liberal”.
Federal election campaign 2016 – week one
The 2016 Federal election campaign kicks off as Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten start to travel Australia. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
The Foreign Minister was in town to campaign on behalf of Russell Matheson, an MP whose margin has been sliced from over 10 to just 3 per cent after the electoral commission mashed up his seat of Macarthur.
The Prime Minister has made a show of opening the campaign with a visit to Labor territory.
Ms Bishop came to western Sydney after a visit to two highly marginal government seats in South Australia. She allowed herself only the most faintly perceptible smile when asked if she had been left to do the hard yards.
But Mr Matheson might have been glad the job had been left up to her. It is hard to see Mr Turnbull or any other politician receiving such a welcome.
„Oh my god, I can’t believe I just met Julie Bishop!,” 22-year-old house painter Kylie Cole was heard to tell a companion after a brief chat.
„I have never met anyone that famous,” she told Fairfax Media while bringing her hand up to the top of her head in an accompanying gesture. „Just wow! Oh my god!”
Ms Bishop is surprisingly tactile and familiar with voters, in a way that is inversely proportional to her coolness when answering reporters’ questions.
A woman who introduced herself as having just got back on her feet after some time living on the street was immediately drawn into a hug. She put her arm around an electrician who said he was voting Liberal and mugged for the cameras.
Even Colleen Bliim, whose appointment at the hairdresser was interrupted by cameras snapping photos of her and others in streaking caps, didn’t seem to mind too much.
