Sensing the need to bring humour to Australia’s upcoming election, regional publisher ACM has harnessed every pun it can for the launch of a new national newsletter.

Like the monotreme of its name, The Echidna is a pretty unconventional animal, “and we aim to be the same,” author and former editor Gary Linnell says.

As writer, he will be supported by freelance cartoonist Fiona Katauskas, delivering “a bit of spiky –drawn with a quill pen – to keep you in the picture”.

Rod Quinn, editorial director of Australian Community Media, says the five-days-a-week newsletter will be “sharp and close to the ground”.

Linnell is a Walkley-winning former editor of The Bulletin and the Daily Telegraph, news and current affairs director at Nine, and editorial director of the former Fairfax Media (now part of Nine).

ACM says the newsletter is part of its “comprehensive editorial plan” for the upcoming federal election, which will be led by chief political correspondent Karen Barlow and include “exposing, analysing and explaining the policies, the posturing and the pork-barrelling”.

The morning Echidna newsletter starts on Monday, and will feature Linnell’s “wit and insight” and Katauskas’ “whimsical cartoons”.

Quinn says Linnell jumped at the chance to return to daily writing. “As he tells it, election campaigns can be a drag. That is, unless you lean in on the daily stunts, outlandish campaign promises and those unpredictable moments of absurdity.”

The newsletter will be a subscriber benefit for readers across ACM’s network of 140 mastheads.