Within hours of the election being called, around 100 staffers descended on the ALP’s national campaign headquarters in Surry Hills in Sydney, and another 100 or so on the Liberal Party’s CHQ in Paramatta, in Western Sydney.

The days are long during an election campaign, with the first of several daily phone hook-ups between CHQ, key personnel and the team travelling with each of the leaders beginning well before the sun rises, and the last held very late in the evening; the text messages and emails and group chats continue overnight.

While the campaign activities for a given day or week may be set, being ready to pivot at any moment is crucial for a successful campaign – and key to this is having a well-run ship with clear structures in place.

Each CHQ hosts trial runs in the lead up to an election being called, with simulated scenarios to test the various functions of the campaign headquarters, including policy, communications, digital, legal, quality control and rapid response teams. There are also Target Seat Units, focused solely on winning or retaining key electorates, and each campaign also engages their own polling and research firms.

Most daily media messages and press requests are centralised by each of the campaign head quarters, to ensure consistency and alignment of information, and each campaign has official spokespeople who are designated to respond to a developing crisis or go on the attack if the other side slips up. They often say the things the parties don’t want the leaders to say.

Accompanying the leaders – the Travelling Team – are policy and media advisers, providing comprehensive briefings on what’s being announced, details about what the other party has announced, and strategising and preparing for press conferences and events. Often, staff tag team throughout the campaign, swapping places at different legs of a journey.

There’s also a team of advancers, who scout locations for press conferences and photo opportunities one or two days ahead of the event, as well as setting up on the morning of the event, trying to ensure a smooth entry and exit and flow of introductions, and to reduce the risk of hecklers and protestors, inappropriate signage, and awkward visuals (think clumsy handshake with Prime Minister Scott Morrison following the bushfires).

Back at CHQ, there are dozens of people in the Policy Unit, more in the Media and Communications Team, and digital has become a bigger and bigger focus in campaigns. This election campaign, the use of social media videos has been markedly higher than in previous years.

There are teams of people engaging with stakeholders on signature policy matters, preparing responses from candidates to local community groups, and a Caucus / Candidate Liaison Unit which focuses on providing information and support to individual electorate teams.

As former Press Secretary to Prime Ministers Rudd and Gillard-turned author and political commentator, Sean Kelly, recently shared on a podcast about a day in the life of CHQ:

“There are lots of different places you can work in a campaign… In that environment, there is an enormous amount of pressure on you not to stuff up – I think that’s the dominant thing.

It’s almost less about making gains for most people working on a campaign… they’re not making the big decisions, but what they are doing is preparing press releases, answering media calls, or checking policy details.

And, if you make an error in any one of those, you can be the person who derails the party’s campaign; costs your party government. So that sense of constant pressure is immense.

And then you have the travelling team, who are out there with the Prime Minister or Opposition Leader, and that’s a very very different situation because again, yes, you have immense pressure on you not to make mistakes… but mistakes are going to be made across a five or six week campaign. In a way, the pressure is on that other end, that entrepreneurial element of you like… you need to know when you have to make shifts, when you can try to grab advantages.”