It has to be official – Mike Baird must be Australia’s favourite politician. His last 24 hours have been brilliant.

There can be few tougher gigs than creating a tourism campaign. There are so many vested interests and, often, the main challenge is managing the expectations of those who paid for the campaign who, invariably, are not those towards whom the ads are targeted.

Even the highly regarded Australia campaign featuring Paul Hogan had its problems, with inbound tourists asking confused restaurant owners for ‘shrimp’.

Anyway, flash forward to 2015 and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is necessarily proud of the new branding and ads for his state. Launching the new logo yesterday, it was always going to be fodder for those north of the border who love nothing better than playing on Victoria’s insecurities. Mike Baird didn’t waste a moment putting a polished Sydney boot straight into his Mexican counterpart.

*offer excludes harbour, infrastructure and sunshine pic.twitter.com/kj8S5qrP9D

— Mike Baird (@mikebairdMP) August 12, 2015

Premier Baird has form in this area. The likable politician has been a boon for New South Wales since Barry O’Farrell fell on his sword thanks to an unmemorable bottle of Grange. Here he is reading mean tweets just prior to his re-election in March.

It’s just a great example of combining personality with clever timing and sharp wit.  An interesting challenge - especially for politicians!