But the current opposition leader, Bill Shorten, has made himself an even smaller target, giving at least 200 fewer interviews and perhaps as many as 400 fewer while avoiding hostile commercial media outlets and commentators such as Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones and Ray Hadley.
An analysis by Fairfax Media of the pair's media outings in 2011 and 2014 respectively – each man's first full year as opposition leader after a federal election – has also prompted questions in the Labor caucus among MPs about the opposition's strategy.
While Mr Shorten has promised 2015 will be a year of ideas for the ALP, some sections of the caucus believe the opposition is not capitalising on the Abbott government's political woes to define itself and announce more policies. Labor has so-far released only a handful of policies, including on multi-national tax avoidance and $70 million extra for family violence critical services.
Advertisement
The comparative analysis of publicly available published transcripts shows Mr Abbott gave 457 radio and TV interviews, press conferences and shorter "doorstop" interviews in 2011, while Mr Shorten gave just 265 in the equivalent 2014 period.
The publicly available information shows both men faced the scrutiny of the Canberra press gallery about the same number of times – 47 times for Mr Abbott and 54 times for Mr Shorten – and both men spoke to the ABC about the same number of times – 40 times for Mr Abbott and 45 times for Mr Shorten.
But in a carefully calibrated media strategy, Mr Shorten is clearly avoiding potentially risky radio interviews, particularly in New South Wales, which has the greatest number of lower house seats and in which Jones and Hadley occupy pre-eminent positions.
Mr Shorten also appears to dislike breakfast television, making just two appearances on the Nine Network's Today show and five on the Seven Network's Sunrise in 2014, compared to 31 and eight by Mr Abbott in 2011.
ANU professor of political marketing Andrew Hughes said Mr Shorten risked becoming known as "Invisibill" because of his "small target, small policy" strategy.
"Shorten is clearly making Abbott do the running and then jumping on his mistakes," he said.
"The more Abbott speaks, the less Bill will, so the differences are noticed, even if the policy differences are small."
"It's a good strategy in that it minimises the harm that can be done, but it also shows they [Labor] must be worried about his depth and the depth of their policies."
shows how low the ALP has fallen.
