I noticed his black eye straight away.

A deep purple bruise under his left eye that disappeared briefly when he smiled.

He was a politician in a suit and tie with a black eye. It was an unusual combination.

With about 60 seconds before our microphones were turned on, I made a polite but direct inquiry.

“Have you got a shiner?”

He chuckled and was happy to share the story on air.

He told me he has a habit of leaving home before his children are awake. He likes to give them a kiss on the head in bed. His fourteen year old son had rolled over elbow first and accidentally struck his dad giving him a black eye on the eve of an election.

Which pollie? Which party? It doesn’t matter.

This will be a bruising campaign. Everyone has a role to play in choosing who gets knocked out. Not just on election day, but on any given day. I hope everyone fights fair. But the professor of politics I spoke to on the first day of the campaign said she expects it to be bitter and nasty.

Who does that help? No one.

The 41 days of this campaign to elect Australia’s 31st Prime Minister will reveal much about politicians and voters. That interrogation should be robust. Politicians must be transparent and accountable, but they don’t deserve to be abused. By colleagues or constituents.

I’m not trying to defend poor representatives or bad behaviour. I’m not excusing ignorance. But abusing someone doing their job, even if they’re doing it badly, is never acceptable is it?

The assault on politicians is relentless. Check the replies to any post they make online. Who would choose to go into politics? They’re sworn at, threatened, and insulted whether it’s at the pub or a public press conference.

Often that’s laughed off as the cut and thrust of modern politics. But does it give us better government? No.

Abusing someone because you don’t like what they’re doing, rarely changes their behaviour.

My first job was in a takeaway shop and on Friday nights a rude bloke would come and demand his weekly fish and chips. We used to call him Mr Big Fish.

He’d put in his order and then yell out that I should make sure it was a “big one”. It didn’t exactly motivate me to sort through raw fish fillets for the perfect piece. I wonder if Mr Big Fish has ever called his local political representative.

Have any of us? Most Australians seem fairly frustrated with politicians. How much responsibility do we as voters take for that?

Griffith University Professor Anne Tiernan told me there are 10 seats to watch in Queensland.
Bonner, Bowman, Brisbane, Dickson, Leichhardt, Lilley, Longman, Moreton, Ryan and Petrie. Important political battlegrounds full of locals who don’t know the name of their electorate or their current representative, let alone the challengers. But they’ll play a key role in putting the next Prime Minister in power.

Two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson observed “The government you elect is the government you deserve.” Who do you deserve?