Rival political leaders are both bulls

Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten share the zodiac sign Taurus and some might think the bull is an apt symbol for the reliability of the pronouncements of the political rivals.

Actually bulls, according to an astrological website, are reliable, patient, practical, devoted, responsible and stable.

Voters will decide who of the two has the greater share of such virtues.

Almost sharing a birthday - Shorten, born on May 12, 1967, is a year and a day the elder - is not the only point of similarity between the prime minister and his Labor challenger.

Both had political parents. Morrison's father had 16 years on a suburban Sydney council while the young Shorten's Melbourne dinner table was full of union gossip and plot.

Both went to university, Morrison doing economic geography and Shorten arts/law.

Shorten, an early political junkie, worked his way up through the trade union movement and the faction-ridden Victorian Labor Party.

He reformed the Australian Workers' Union and gained the leadership of the Victorian right.

Much of Morrison's pre-parliamentary career was in tourism promotion in Australia and New Zealand. This involved public relations, lobbying and dealing with government - all important political skills.

And for four years he was NSW director of the Liberal Party, overseeing a federal and state election.

Both came to the House of Representatives in 2007, the year Kevin Rudd ended John Howard's long ascendancy.

And both got there after messy preselections.

Morrison was heavily defeated in a preselection for the southern Sydney seat of Cook by the right faction's Michael Towke.

But the party's state executive intervened, disendorsing Towke and ordering a new vote which Morrison won.

Shorten, with the factional power behind him, forced incumbent frontbencher Bob Sercombe to step aside from the safe Melbourne seat of Maribyrnong.

Both were clearly MPs on the rise. A long and humble backbench apprenticeship was not for them.

Shorten became a parliamentary secretary immediately and by the end of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era had held several senior cabinet positions.

Morrison was on the opposition front bench after less than a year in parliament.

When Tony Abbott brought the Coalition back to power in 2013, Morrison became the architect of Operation Sovereign Borders, the controversial program to stop the boats. Under Malcolm Turnbull he became treasurer.

Shorten, who was up to his eyeballs in the tearing down of Rudd and Gillard, won the Labor leadership despite losing the membership-wide vote to Anthony Albanese.

Morrison won the Liberal leadership after the tearing down of Malcolm Turnbull despite trailing Peter Dutton in the first round of voting.

Parallels have been drawn between Shorten and Labor giant Bob Hawke, who also rose through the union movement.

Perhaps more persuasive are parallels between Morrison the suburban family man and Howard, who made ordinariness a political art form.

However Morrison, a Cronulla Sharks tragic, is far more competent with a rugby league ball than Howard was with a cricket ball.