It was Scott Morrison's so-called quiet Australians who delivered him his shock "miracle" election in 2019.
What remains unclear after the first week of the election campaign is if they're still with him or just quietly furious at how he's governed in the three years since.
Morrison has projected an air of confidence, a leader at ease travelling across the nation meeting with workers.
But the bulk of his appearances have been staged managed within a inch of their lives.
After an ill-fated foray into a Newcastle pub last week, gone are the impromptu pub visits from the 2019 campaign.
Yet he quickly recovered from that bruising encounter, as Anthony Albanese's campaign missteps grew.
Liberals are undoubtedly amazed at how quickly their fortunes have turned.
But if this week has shown anything, it's that no one sees banana skins coming.
And if Labor and Albanese can get their campaign back on track, there remain the ghosts of candidates' pasts that could well haunt the Coalition's re-election efforts.
Albanese still seeking a reset
The Easter long weekend was meant to bring with it a reset for the Opposition Leader.
The public tune out for the holidays, Labor argues, and Albanese could start again come Tuesday in his bid to be Australia's next prime minister.
But as has been so emblematic of this last week, Labor spent Good Friday in damage control after yet another mistake from the leader.
Albanese was meant to begin the day at a church service, after which he would offer brief comments marking the most solemn day on the Christian calendar.
The comments came but what came next were questions about why earlier in the week he said the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) had costed a Labor health policy when it hadn't.
After three attempts at explaining Labor the situation, Albanese turned his back and walked off.
In politics, when you're explaining, you're losing.
Loading
Decoding the Morrison message
Morrison has never made a secret of his faith. If anything, he's traded on it.
Take yesterday. He repeatedly insisted Good Friday wasn't a day for politics.
Yet he found the time to not just stand in front of the news cameras outside the church, but to speak at length about the importance of faith to him.
A review of Labor's 2019 campaign found the party was viewed as anti-religion.
So standing here outside the church, Morrison wants to remind his quiet Australians of this.
A week earlier he released a pre-campaign ad, which included a close up of the wedding band on his left hand — about as subtle as a sledgehammer reminder than Albanese is a divorcee.
On these issues, the PM clearly feels comfortable.
But his foray back into the lives of transgender Australians brought with it a quick retreat for a Prime Minister who might might have flown too closely to the sun.
Morrison's sudden retreat
There are elements of the Liberal Party that thinks many of Morrison's quiet Australians are unsure how they feel about transwomen competing in women's sporting competitions.
So on Monday it was perhaps unsurprising that he would offer his personal support of a Tasmanian Liberal senator's bid to change the Sex Discrimination Act to allow sporting groups and clubs to exclude transgender women from single-sex sports.
But by Tuesday he was insisting that was merely a personal position and not government policy.
So why the sudden retreat?
Well, just ask the Liberals in North Sydney, Wentworth, Higgins, Bass and Reid what they think about him bringing even the slightest hint of anti-trans issues into the campaign.
Those five Liberals are the ones who sunk his religious discrimination overhaul earlier this year, unsatisfied enough protections weren't in place for trans children.
These same Liberals likely shuddered when Morrison effectively ditched his commitment to establish a national anti-corruption watchdog even if re-elected, refusing to budge on any changes to his preferred model.
Some of Morrison's most vulnerable incumbents — people who once had safe Liberal seats — are under serious threat from independents campaigning against the government on matters of integrity.
Morrison need only look to Warringah, the seat now held by the independent that toppled former PM Tony Abbott, to see how damaging independents can be.
The whole reason Morrison was facing questions about transwomen was because his hand-picked captain's call in Warringah, Katherine Deves has twice been forced to apologise for now deleted transphobic social media posts.
The Liberals' hopes were dashed in a Tasmanian seat it hoped to win in 2019 when their candidate was forced to quit the party after the ballots had already been printed after accusations of historical anti-immigration and anti-Muslim social media posts.
A Liberal review of the last election recommended that aspiring politicians be trained at "candidate colleges", in a bid to prevent embarrassing disendorsements in the future.
There's a growing mood from some senior Liberals that the party needs to cut Deves adrift and abandon its bid in Warringah, fearing the collateral damage of more unearthed posts could hurt the rest of the campaign.
Leaders to face off
For Albanese, the challenge now is make the election a referendum on Morrison.
But the Coalition is still optimistic it can capitalise on Albanese's week one blunders over the next five weeks.
Ultimately, Australians will likely vote for what affects them, rather than what offends them.
They'll get a better picture of how the leaders will affect their lives when they go head to head in their first debate on Sky News on Wednesday.
Albanese started this campaign the hot favourite, well ahead in the opinion polls.
Betting agencies have drastically tightened their odds in recent days.
Labor and and Albanese need to hope people putting their money where there mouth is doesn't offer a glimpse what's in stock on May 21.
Loading form...
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMia2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIyLTA0LTE2L3Njb3R0LW1vcnJpc29uLXF1aWV0LWF1c3RyYWxpYW5zLWFudGhvbnktYWxiYW5lc2UtZWxlY3Rpb24vMTAwOTk0NTUw0gEA?oc=5
2022-04-15 18:01:19Z
1369544967
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Scott Morrison's election fortunes looking up after Anthony Albanese's horror week, but hidden banana peels wait - ABC News"
Post a Comment