Superstars and no-names in the election campaign

Who has clout? Who courts controversy? Who has a high profile portfolio? Who has a marginal seat? They’re some of the questions Crikey asked Media Monitors to help us answer.

Media Monitors have tracked the mentions of ministers and their opposition counterparts. The leaders obviously top the lists, but what about the rest.

Economic management has been the issue of this campaign, so Peter Costello comes in miles ahead — helped along, of course, by the leadership issue. Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull occupy the next two spots, thanks to their portfolios and what we could politely call the vagaries of campaigning. The Coalition’s attack poodle, Alexander Downer, takes the next position, but then the numbers of media mentions really drops down.

Mark Vaile gets in as leader of the country cousins. Joe Hockey ranks surprisingly low. The Defence Minister seems to have realised he’ll have better chance of becoming leader if he keeps his head down. And so we work down the list until we come to the least mentioned ministers.

You wouldn’t know that Chris Ellison is in Cabinet with this – but it’s pretty easy to tell that Fran Bailey, Bruce Billson and Peter Dutton all hold marginals.

Shadow ministers love elections. It’s when they can get a run. Looking down the Labor list it’s easy to see what a structured and disciplined campaign the ALP has run.

Shadow treasurer Wayne Swan tops, followed by deputy leader and IR spokesperson Julia Gillard. That’s economic management taken care of. Peter Garrett comes in next, thanks to the importance of the environment in this campaign and, er, his own learning on the job. And that’s when the numbers drop away. Nicola Roxon gets a boost thanks to her surprise success against Tony Abbott in the health portfolio. Some shadows, however, have been next to invisible.

We’d better mention Jan McLucas (119 citations); Robert McClelland (72), Arch Bevis (59), Nick Sherry (50) and Laurie Ferguson (39) here – because very few other people are going to.

And the campaign charts? Here they are, for ministers, shadows, the leaders and a few standout candidates – Maxine McKew (Number 20); George Newhouse (21); Pauline Hanson (28); Greg Combet (35) and yesterday’s saviour, Bill Shorten (47).

Politician	Press	Radio	Television	Internet	Total
John Howard	14,362	84,075	44,777	103,617	246,831
Kevin Rudd	12,451	75,057	38,877	81,200	207,585
Peter Costello	5,054	22,346	15,282	29,640	72,322
Tony Abbott	1,469	13,322	8,066	13,650	36,506
Malcolm Turnbull	1,767	8,491	4,026	18,774	33,058
Wayne Swan	1,811	9,303	7,156	10,479	28,749
Julia Gillard	1,321	7,668	5,378	10,481	24,847
Peter Garrett	1,518	8,309	3,727	10,591	24,145
Alexander Downer	885	5,250	1,523	14,106	21,765
Mark Vaile	897	6,865	1,337	8,524	17,623
Joe Hockey	1,110	5,314	2,179	8,552	17,154
Bob Brown	851	3,584	1,250	5,761	11,446
Kevin Andrews	553	2,399	632	6,370	9,954
Nicola Roxon	551	3,255	2,375	2,486	8,667
Mal Brough	709	2,653	408	3,619	7,389
Brendan Nelson	452	1,992	589	3,590	6,623
Peter McGauran	289	1,947	239	3,396	5,871
Helen Coonan	302	1,228	464	3,233	5,227
Nick Minchin	716	2,243	889	1,256	5,104
Maxine McKew	735	1,742	944	1,657	5,078
George Newhouse	524	1,642	1,374	984	4,524
Julie Bishop	591	1,629	464	1,437	4,121
Philip Ruddock	447	1,382	300	1,380	3,509
Stephen Smith	726	1,233	586	520	3,065
Andrew Robb	222	1,752	181	594	2,749
George Brandis	245	687	216	1,079	2,228
Barnaby Joyce	257	1,460	154	342	2,213
Pauline Hanson	323	760	242	736	2,061
Lyn Allison	258	791	324	572	1,945
Joel Fitzgibbon	251	1,156	177	292	1,876
Simon Crean	236	1,192	42	348	1,818
Lindsay Tanner	238	747	119	614	1,718
Gary Nairn	236	819	145	428	1,628
Penny Wong	99	1,210	56	200	1,565
Greg Combet	260	675	237	312	1,484
Tanya Plibersek	173	733	196	328	1,430
Stephen Conroy	181	879	44	326	1,430
Ian MacFarlane	148	732	230	230	1,340
Chris Pyne	192	568	105	454	1,319
Martin Ferguson	222	701	194	128	1,245
Jenny Macklin	179	615	68	346	1,208
Anthony Albanese	190	493	68	303	1,054
Warren Truss	105	656	51	156	968
Tony Burke	91	416	117	174	798
David Johnston	106	359	54	244	763
Jim Lloyd	198	302	106	140	746
Bill Shorten	173	246	178	131	727
Kate Lundy	247	168	14	228	657
Bill Heffernan	55	296	94	112	557
Eric Abetz	63	384	51	58	556
Sharman Stone	36	392	35	48	511
Craig Emerson	150	158	54	142	504
Fran Bailey	165	67	10	166	408
Bruce Billson	103	207	14	72	396
Chris Ellison	23	289	14	56	382
Peter Dutton	188	97	25	38	348
Bob McMullan	65	197	6	70	338
Kim Carr	48	158	34	68	308
Chris Evans	87	130	5	68	290
Nigel Scullion	72	99	12	96	279
Alan Griffin	46	160	5	10	221
Joe Ludwig	70	54	8	56	188
Chris Bowen	46	60	0	26	132
Kerry O’Brien	48	33	12	30	123
Jan McLucas	40	35	6	38	119
Robert McLelland	7	23	30	12	72
Arch Bevis	42	5	0	12	59
Nick Sherry	19	22	1	8	50
Laurie Ferguson	21	6	8	4	39