Michael McGuire: ScoMo’s fair dinkum election plan is failing

Between spending millions in advertising and his condescending take on leadership, one thing is now clear. Either Morrison is intellectually barren or he truly believes Australians are pretty thick, writes Michael McGuire.

Friday morning last week.

Early. Just after 7am. Somewhere in the cat food aisle of the local Foodland. An ad comes over whichever commercial radio station the supermarket favours. It’s hard to tell, they all sound the same.

But the ad is a strange one. It’s for the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. It is highly enthusiastic about all the wonderful stuff the government has done to expand the list of medicines on the PBS and how those that need help will be slugged far fewer dollars at their local chemist when picking up their prescription.

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It’s an ad I’ve never heard before.

Around 12 hours earlier, Labor leader Bill Shorten had delivered his Budget reply speech, the centrepiece of which had been a more than $2 billion promise to expand Medicare to include all cancer treatment.

Scott Morrison’s government has spent $136 million this year alone in advertising and market research. Picture: AAP/Dean Lewins

The ad in Foodland wasn’t a coincidence.

It’s also part of the reason why Scott Morrison has delayed calling the election, until the latest date in a long line of guesses — May 19. To push his hands as deeply as possible into the pockets of taxpayers, and therefore avoid the Liberal Party having to pay for these nakedly political ads as they will when the official election period starts.

It’s part of the last push by a cynical, opportunistic desperate government trying to remain in power.

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Figures released this week revealed Morrison’s government has spent $136 million on advertising and market research since January 1. That’s not just an obscene amount of money, it’s verging on the immoral.

Today is the 100th day of 2019, which makes the maths happily easy for a journalist. (It’s $1.36 million a day).

So another week of Morrison holding the nation to ransom costs around $9.52 million.

Not that this is solely a Liberal problem. It’s a political problem. Labor would do exactly the same if the positions were reversed. And the Liberals would be full of sound and fury criticising them.

During Senate Estimates this week, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann refused to answer questions about the government’s spending on advertising and market research. Picture: AAP/Lukas Coch

And how do we know this? In 2013, in an attempt to convince voters it was tough on border protection, Labor, then in government, ran a $3 million advertising campaign.

And what did Scott Morrison, then in opposition, say about the spending? “They are ramraiding the taxpayer’s ATM … (crooked former NSW Labor MP) Eddie Obeid would be proud.”

We have seen the same thing in South Australia as well. Just think of the nakedly political taxpayer-funded adverts fronted by ex-Premier Jay Weatherill to spruik his government’s $550 million energy policy.

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Steven Marshall’s government changed the rules to prevent MPs appearing in any ads that are political in nature. Still, it didn’t stop them spending more than $400,000 on ads selling their payroll tax cut plan in the last month.

Morrison hasn’t called the election yet, but the faux campaign is well underway and it’s shaping to be one of the stupidest in living memory.

If he wants to win the election, the Prime Minister needs to drop his ‘fair dinkum’ act and be himself. Picture: AAP/Joel Carrett

Morrison needs to pretend he understands Australian, and Australian culture is grating. The manufactured folksy language “G’day, Fair Dinkum, ScoMo.’’ The clinging onto characters he believes will demonstrate that he’s just an ordinary bloke. Mick Fanning. And now the racehorse Winx.

“I’ve met them (the owners), and shared some stories with them as well, and they for me epitomise that ‘fair go for those who have a go’ and I think that’s the story of Winx.’’ Of course, Winx is a high-priced thoroughbred owned by millionaires, but sure, it’s a real rags-to-riches tale.

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Then there was Morrison trying to claim Labor’s electric car policy would “end the weekend’’ because there would be no more four-wheel drives.

It’s okay to not like Labor’s policy. Indeed it’s pretty easy to argue against it, but when Morrison plays the “world is going to end’’ card first time, every time, it becomes tiresome pretty quickly. Either Morrison is just intellectually barren or he truly believes Australians are pretty thick.

Back whichever horse you like in that race. It’s going to be a long, and expensive, six weeks. Roll on May 19.

Michael McGuire is a senior writer for the Adelaide Advertiser.