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Boats and climate. The opening skirmishes of the 2016 election campaign show the perennial frictions of Australian politics remain just that, perennial - despite the passing of Tony Abbott and talk of a new more hopeful discourse.
More interesting than these rehashed themes is the way they are being deployed to evince a sincerity deficit on the other side. This is what rival politicians do when their opponents essentially agree with them: quibble over commitment.
On the first day of the contest, this withering process was happening in both directions.
Labor claims Malcolm Turnbull has traded away his signature commitment to action on global warming, for conservative backing, rendering him a hollow man and a climate fraud. Labor's project is simple: diminish Turnbull and they strip away the Coalition's post-coup renovation, exposing its original Abbott-esque formwork for all to see.
For its part, the Coalition continues to argue that Bill Shorten's success in changing Labor policy last year to embrace sealed borders, mandatory off-shore detention, and turn-backs, was mere marketing. The Coalition argues Labor's was a fake conversion and that its promised toughness would inevitably crack under internal pressure from the left, inviting a new people-smuggling trade.
No matter where you stand on these bellicose claims, there's no denying they sting.
After the government's border protection hard man Peter Dutton confirmed the recent return of asylum seekers to Sri Lanka, Bill Shorten found himself discussing border security on day 1 in Queensland, rather than striking out on Labor's favoured territory of health and education. Shorten says Labor's border policy is clear. But even endorsed candidates behave as if it is not settled.
Dispensing with the dog whistle, Dutton pulled out the fog horn: "...there are 58 million people in the world that would seek to come to a country like Australia and we need to make sure that we can keep our borders safe and secure ... we now have two additional Labor candidates who've come out opposing Bill Shorten on their border protection policies."
On climate, Turnbull drew the fire to himself, mysteriously neglecting to even mention the policy area for which was most widely known in middle Australia when he announced the poll.
Thus he too was in damage control: "Our plan is clear, it's part of a global agreement reached in Paris with all the nations of the world," he protested, while branding his bare-minimum policy designed by Abbott as "good".
But this was a stretch, as the Climate Change Institute's John Connor pointed out: "One of the key reasons Paris was a success is because national targets aren't negotiated in the agreement. Countries are required to set them and consider the objective of limiting warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius and the goal of net zero emissions economies. Australia's inadequate targets were established by Tony Abbott well in advance of Paris and if other countries did similar, would lead to warming of 3 to 4 degrees."
What to believe?
