How either side could lose this election

Picture: Ray Strange Source: News Limited

Opposition leader Tony Abbott welcomes the PM's decision to announce the federal election will be held on September 14.

TRUST and economic management will emerge as the main battlegrounds in a super-month campaign providing no excuses for flimsy promises and plenty of time to trip, experts say.

THE issue of trust and economic management will emerge as the ultimate background areas in a super 10-month campaign that will leave no excuses for flimsy promises and plenty of time to trip, experts say.

And with both leaders painting the other as untrustworthy, voters should be prepared for the "liar" verses the "misogynist'.

Economic management, boats and the carbon tax will all feature heavily in the lead up to September 14, but political pundits say the overarching issue will be trust.

"The unpopularity of the two leaders will be the main talking point because most people will agree, both the leaders are very unpopular," veteran election analyst Malcolm Mackerras said.

"I think it will be a nasty campaign."

The broken carbon tax promise and inability to deliver a budget surplus was widely perceived to have left Labor's reputation and economic policy in tatters, he said.

"They have established a general trust which the Labor party have failed to establish," he said.

Policy costings and cuts won't be able to be measured against each other until after the May Budget and after the Coalition realises theirs.

But arguments over who is the best economic manager will rage, with Labor already pointing to deep cuts and job losses in Conservative states as something voters can expect under Tony Abbott as prime minister.

Dr Damon Alexander, from the University of Melbourne's school of social and political sciences, said Labor's strategy will be trying to trip up Mr Abbott and his would-be treasurer Joe Hockey in a stretched campaign.

"The Coalition's already tripped itself up a few times when it's been pressured on how it might actually frame cuts it says needs to be made and fund the promises that it's making," Dr Alexander said.

"It gives Labor the maximum chance to cause whatever mayhem and damage it can in that area.

"And that's what it's going to have to do.

"It's obviously the Coalition's election to lose."

Mr Abbott will continue to push his "pledge in blood" to repeal the carbon tax as a way to bring down cost of living pressures for families and businesses.

And a carbon tax rise - from $23 a tonne to $24.15 - on July 1 will give him another opportunity to howl over escalating prices.

But the carbon tax will be a double-edged sword.

It gives the Coalition an easy way of pointing to Prime Minister Julia Gillard's broken promises, Mr Mackerras said. But many were sick of hearing about it, had decided it hadn't greatly changed their lives and didn't want it torn up.

"That might help the Labor party quite a bit to the point it might make the election quite close," he said.

The continued arrival of asylum boats will do nothing for Labor, though, as the Coalition pushes its temporary protection visas and turn-around-the-boats policy as the missing link in Labor's off-shore processing policy.

Australian National University Emeritus Professor John Warhurst said Labor will be pushing it's plans to pump $6.5 billion a year of extra state and federal money into schools and its $1 billion NDIS pledge to take the edge off the negativity.

While the Coalition supports the NDIS, it lacks a concrete plan to make it happen and has argued against the Gonski reforms, saying a more modest six per cent rise, school autonomy and tweeks to the national curriculum will address underperforming students.

The first stage of the NDIS, beginning in five locations on July 1, will give Labor something to crow about.

But the Government would have nothing concrete to show on other fronts, meaning it still came down to trust, Professor Warhurst said.

"The messenger will be more important than the message," he said.

However, a concrete election date leaves no excuses for sketchy policy and Labor will seek to exploit Mr Abbott's lack of detail so far.

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