Gleeson: So where the bloody hell are you, Prime Minister?

Seven months into Australia’s top job, conservatives are asking the architect of Tourism Australia’s disastrous 2006 ad campaign the same question Lara Bingle did: Where the bloody hell are ya?

BACK in 2006, the world wasn’t quite ready for the latest multimillion-dollar Tourism Australia offering, infamously known as the Where the Bloody Hell are You? campaign.

In fact, the UK banned it and former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd referred to it as “an absolute rolled gold disaster’’. Then Opposition tourism spokesman Martin Ferguson said: “We’ve been told it was a huge success and generated all these hits on a website but the latest tourism figures show the numbers are down.’’

Opinion: Why I want to be Lara Bingle

Crocodile Dundee ad was a brilliant marketing ploy by Tourism Australia

Tourist numbers from Japan, Germany and the UK dived. The campaign did however introduce us to a young bikini-clad model named Lara Bingle, who of course has gone onto much bigger and brighter things.

The man who gave the green light to this $180 million epic fail was none other than Scott Morrison, who was the chief executive of Tourism Australia and is now the Prime Minister of Australia. It’s fair to say Morrison has also gone onto bigger and brighter things but has he learned anything from the tourism trainwreck, Where the Bloody Hell are You?

Unfortunately for conservatives in this country, the answer is no. Morrison must surely know that as the current polls stand, he will be leading the Coalition into one of the most crushing defeats in Australian political history.

Yet like he did with the tourism campaign, Morrison has decided that rather than accept reality and change course, he’d rather set about polishing a turd. There are many people, particularly those in small business, who are genuinely fearful of a Shorten Government.

They are worried about Labor’s cosy relationship with the ACTU and the zealotry pursuit of a so-called “living wage’’, which will send costs skyrocketing for employers. There are many people who are justifiably concerned at the prospect of higher taxes, a drop in house prices, the clampdown on franking credits, our borders being opened up again to people smugglers, a relaxation of national security laws and the daddy of them all, surging power prices as Labor and the Greens chase a 45 per cent renewables target.

Model Lara Bingle (18yrs) at the Entertainment Quarter in Sydney following launch of the Tourism Australia advertising campaign "so where the bloody hell are you?"

But instead of Scott Morrison giving voters a real choice on policy, he’s Malcolm Turnbull Lite, telling his Cabinet to stick to the party line that the Government will not underwrite any new coal-fired power stations.

This is despite baseload power still being the number one source of energy in the country and other large economies such as China, India and Japan vowing to build more coal-fired power stations.

It puts him at odds with many in the National Party, including Resources Minister Matt Canavan, who understands the importance of coal to our economy.

The reality going into this election is that a lot of people have made up their mind. They would rather risk the economy going into recession under Labor than reward the instability and short-sighted policy flaws of the Coalition.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison during a visit to the Melbourne Markets in Melbourne. Picture: AAP

So why doesn’t the Prime Minister give those who are undecided a real choice? Why doesn’t he pull out of the Paris Agreement, vow to build more coal-fired power stations, guarantee lower and more reliable electricity and let voters decide who has the better energy policy?

The reason Pauline Hanson, Bob Katter and Clive Palmer are siphoning off votes from the LNP is because rusted-on conservatives – the so-called base – are fed up with the Coalition’s inability to make the tough decisions.

It’s not good enough in a few weeks for the Frydenberg budget to promise tax cuts to the middle class. The voters are not listening. The only way they will reconnect to the Coalition is when the Prime Minister starts offering up bold, fresh and innovative new policies that expose the Labor Party’s politics of envy. Scott Morrison inherited dysfunctionality and division.

Nobody underestimates the challenge of building harmony in a deeply divided Caucus. But Morrison has now been in the top job nearly seven months and he’s not making any impression on Labor’s big lead in the polls. The question conservative voters are asking of the PM on the big issues, the contest of ideas, the nation-changing policies that can bring the LNP back into the game is: Where the bloody hell are you?