Morrison was asked to respondand was clear,“Those threats and intimidation has no place in Australia.” He underlined it with:“Where we have disagreements,we don’t handle them with violence and there can be no tolerance for that.”
But he didn’t end his response there. He began to riff on a line he has been workshopping to leverage the obvious frustration many share about lockdowns,border closures and the heavy hand of government. On that he said,“It’s time for governments to step back. And for Australians to take their lives back.”
Dan Andrews is a gifted politician and managed to pivot the protest and that line to cast everyone marching against him as being party to a lynch mob and accuse the Prime Minister of “pandering to extremists”. On cue from the west,Mark McGowan hit the same note,“We can’t have anyone trying to score points with the anti-vaxxers or dog-whistling to them.”
Both were accusations of doublespeak.
The premiers’ pincer movement underscores the degree of difficulty facing the Coalition as it turns into the new year and an election that must come by May.
In 2019,the Coalition’s surprise victory masked the reality of how close the contest was. It won one seat more than the bare minimum it needed to form government,77 seats of 151 in the House of Representatives. The recast electoral map has cut that margin,handing a seat to Labor in Victoria and removing a Liberal seat from Western Australia.
Loading
The Coalition’s few hopes for gains lie with Lyons in Tasmania and a handful of prospects in NSW. It then must hold everything in Victoria,Queensland and Western Australia. In those three states it confronts powerful,popular Labor premiers who have dusted off their baseball bats well before the federal campaign.
The Coalition’s deepest dread lies in the west,where the enduring McGowan personality cult in the hermit kingdom haunts their dreams. There they fear the loss of at least three seats.
In Pearce,Christian Porter is mulling whether he should run again. That seems unlikely. His margin has been cut by the redistribution (now notionally 5.2 per cent) and his reputation has been shredded. Victory holds the opportunity of another three years in the remorseless public grinder and defeat a final humiliation. Returning to the bar,he can rebuild his finances and regain some semblance of a private life. If he goes,the new hopeful will have little time and a large mountain to climb.
The retirement of Steve Irons reduces the chances of the Liberals holding Swan (3.2 per cent) and Ken Wyatt will be fighting a rear-guard action in Hasluck (5.9 per cent).
Loading
To have any hope of recovering in the west,the Liberals need time,their leader must be able to campaign in person,and he must pick the right fight.
That was the other revealing part of the Prime Minister’s dig that Anthony Albanese is outsourcing his campaign to state premiers;the charge that the Opposition Leader isn’t cutting through. That would have echoed loudly through Labor’s ranks.
Certainly,the Coalition knows who it wants to fight.
“If the race is between Scott Morrison and Mark McGowan,he loses,” one minister said. “If it’s between Morrison and Anthony Albanese,he wins.”