Of course, if the Senate does pass the Australian Building and Construction Bills, and the Registered Organizations Bill, the election will be pushed out even further, probably until September or October - heaven forbid!

Either way it's a very long time to have to watch on from the sidelines as our pollies and aspirants slug it out against each other, with claim and counter claim, offering a barrage of promises, many undeliverable, or simply won't be delivered. Elections tend to bring out the worst in them, and in our political process.

Government is basically set aside, for the duration of the campaign, and genuine and substantial debates about policy alternatives are eschewed.

Long campaigns also tend to favour the Opposition. I recall Hawke's 10-week campaign in 1984, where Opposition Leader Peacock performed unexpectedly well, winning some 9 seats from Labor, even though Hawke went into that campaign with an ACNielsen rating of 75%. It was said, at the time, that if the campaign had gone on another week, Peacock could well have won.

The electorate is also much less tolerant these days of poor or uninspiring government performance. Gone are the days where a government could essentially count on a minimum of two terms. There are some significant lessons to be learned from recent State elections in Queensland and Victoria where governments were dismissed against expectations, especially Queensland where the Opposition held only 9 seats, and the Palaszczuk team was largely unknown and clearly not ready to govern.

The key to these unexpected State victories was essentially the focus on "bread and butter" issues - issues that are of direct significance to voters - for example, Andrews in Victoria focused much of his campaign on vocational training and level rail crossings.

I suspect that Shorten will build on this approach, focusing on basic issues such as schools, hospitals and childcare, while dramatically elevating issues such as climate change, where he will hope to wedge Turnbull, locked in, as he is, to Abbott's climate policies. Also expect that Windsor will do the same in his campaign for New England, hoping to wedge Joyce, who will also be hamstrung by Cabinet solidarity.

Turnbull can be expected to talk a lot about innovation, technology and infrastructure, and the "transition" from an economy based on a resources boom, to whatever. Of course, if it is a double dissolution election, he will focus on union governance, but just for a little time at the beginning of the campaign.

Turnbull will clearly begin with the edge, even though his personal satisfaction rating is now net negative, and the polls will still probably be suggesting that the contest will be neck and neck. Although he has burned a lot of political capital by failing to match initial expectations, and through apparent inactivity, many will still want him to do well.

However, the electorate finds it hard to accept how much he has changed, and how much he traded in deals with the backbench, to get the leadership. They are looking for the original Malcolm to reappear.

In this regard, I couldn't help but recall the conversation between Alice and the Caterpillar.

'Who are YOU?' said the Caterpillar.

This was an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, "I - I hardly know, sir, just at present - at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.'

'What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. 'Explain yourself!'

"I can't explain MYSELF, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, 'because I am not myself, you see.'

"I don't see,' said the Caterpillar.