The Prime Minister calls it the Canberra Bubble - even though he believes it's others and not him who is caught up in it.
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For those inside the bubble, the cut and thrust of politics, the backroom shenanigans in Parliament House and the surrounding bars and restaurants become more important than the voters at home.
Labor's Stephen Jones has held the seat of Whitlam since 2010, back when it was still called Throsby.
In his 12 years in politics, he's found the best way to avoid the bubble is to stand on street corners in his electorate.
"Every week I send an email out to four suburbs and I spend a Saturday doing my mobile offices," he said.
"So literally what I'll do is I'll email a suburb and say 'I'll be at this place at this time. Come and tell me what's on your mind. Give me a tune-up, bring your problems'
"I find I get some of my best ideas and a real grounding in what people are thinking by doing that consistently throughout the year, every year. You're never blindsided by things if you're continually doing that stuff, not just during an election campaign."
Mr Jones came up through the union movement, rising to the position of national secretary in the Community and Public Sector Union.
He said he was aware some voters took a very dim view of the links between Labor and the union movement, but Mr Jones said they were "a partner, they're not a boss".
"They're an important link and they keep us in contact with what people in workplaces are thinking, feeling and needing," he said.
"That's one of the reasons we're putting an emphasis on the need for workers to get a pay rise. Because it's that knowledge that people's wages have gone backwards over the last nine years and the government hasn't got a plan to fix it."
On election night this Saturday, Mr Jones won't be at home in his Whitlam electorate. Instead, he'll be part of the Channel 10 panel dissecting the results.
While he said he'd prefer to be in his electorate it was an example of having to juggle local and national responsibilities.
The TV appearance doesn't come without some risk; should the voting not go his way and the race for Whitlam suddenly becomes much tighter, he may be forced to discuss what is happening in his own seat.
"If that did happen, I wouldn't be the first person that it's happened to - which is why they normally put senators on there," he said.
"Look, I've worked hard. I hope that I get re-elected - I don't take that for granted. If that doesn't happen, then I just have to accept the verdict of the people."
Though with a 10 per cent margin, it's unlikely that will happen.
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