When Anthony Albanese announced Labor's new target of a 43 per cent decrease in emissions by 2030, the Prime Minister was quick to cast doubt upon its reliability. He alleged that in a hung parliament Labor would cave in to the Greens and install a higher target in line with Greens policy. Therefore, he alleged, a vote for Labor was a vote for the Greens.

It takes chutzpah for the Coalition to go down this path. This is the party which recently was held to ransom by its Coalition partner, the Nationals, as Morrison tried to steer the government towards zero net emissions by 2050. The Prime Minister was left waiting by Barnaby Joyce & Co almost until he boarded the plane to COP26 in Glasgow. A vote for the Liberals is a vote for the Nationals?

It is also risky for Morrison to take this road. But his extreme self-confidence in his campaigning and marketing abilities means he will have no regrets. As the dictionary says, if you have chutzpah, you say what you think without worrying about hurting someone's feelings, looking silly or getting into trouble.

The strategy is risky, because it raises many unintended consequences and loose ends for the next election. The situation could become very messy and confusing for voters.

This type of campaigning has a long history but with different permutations. During the Cold War the conservatives alleged that a vote for Labor was a vote for extreme socialism, or even a vote for the Communist Party of Australia. The scare tactic was known then as the "communist bogey", scaring voters away from Labor.

Then, when centrist options like the Australian Democrats became attractive to Liberal voters in the 1980s and 1990s, the tactic was twisted around to say "a vote for the Democrats is a vote for Labor". The same tactic has been, and will again be, used by the Liberals against centrist independents such as Helen Haines and Zali Steggall. Then it will be alleged that "a vote for an independent is a vote for Labor".

For the tactic to be successful for Morrison, there are at least two prerequisites. One is that voters have bad memories of minority government during the Gillard years, 2013-16. Potential Labor voters would need to have negative memories of Gillard's so-called carbon tax, and her negotiations after the election with the crossbench.

The second is that it depends on some voters being so allergic to the Greens that even the suggestion of a Labor-Green alliance would turn them off Labor. It depends on the Greens having an unacceptably radical image in the wider community.

It might also depend on how the Greens campaign in 2022. They will certainly be attacking Labor for adopting a weak 2030 target. Remember that Labor and the Greens are themselves in competition for votes, especially in inner-urban seats.

If Labor retaliates by running with the slogan "a vote for the Liberals is a vote for the Nationals", then the Liberals must hope that the Greens are more unacceptable than the Nationals to middle-ground voters.

Morrison may be setting up a battle for the centre, where most elections are won. That may be effective in the outer suburbs and regions, but it won't play well for him in those middle-class electorates, like Warringah and Wentworth, where the Liberals are battling independents with a climate change agenda.

Liberal MPs like Dave Sharma in Wentworth want to present themselves to their electorate as supporters of climate action. Where does that leave them in the Coalition government's larger strategy of discrediting Labor's policy? These "Green" Liberals will have to walk a fine line.

Morrison's strategy also runs the risk of turning attention once again to his own veracity. Does he have any basis in fact to claim that Labor is willing to negotiate away its 43 per cent target after the election? Morrison's character looks like being a major theme during the election campaign. He may be throwing more fuel on that fire.

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A minority government and a so-called hung parliament is one possible result of the next federal election. The last two have been extraordinarily close, and 2022 could well be the same. Both Morrison and Albanese may have to negotiate with the crossbench to form a minority government.

But the shape of the parliament is impossible to predict. We don't know how many members will be on the crossbench in the House (much less the Senate). A situation in which Labor could form government only with the support of the Greens is just one of many possibilities. Remember, the Greens will probably still only have one seat in the House of Representatives.

It is more likely that the fate of the next government will rest with independents like Haines in Indi and Steggall in Warringah, who also value climate action. They would then be put in the same unenviable position as the rural independents, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, in 2010, when they were forced to choose one side or the other.

The ramifications of the slogan "If you vote for X, you are really voting for Y" are huge. That it has been introduced so early in this pre-election period does not bode well for campaign standards in the coming election.