Federal election 2019: Morrison starts campaign on economics

Bill Shorten got caught in the uninspiring Moonee Ponds when the 45th Federal Parliament was officially “prorogued’’ at an 8.30am ceremony but if you’re feeling just as unprepared, fear not, here’s all you need to know about today’s movements – in 90 seconds.

The 45th Federal Parliament was today “prorogued’’ at an 8.30am ceremony which, to those unfamiliar with their Latin roots, might sound like our MPs were subjected to something vaguely obscene.

But no one should be alarmed.

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It simply means Parliament was dissolved, like an Aspro Clear, allowing the 2019 campaign to officially kick off with caretaker Prime Minister Scott Morrison immediately searing an economic brand onto his campaign’s hide.

“In the space of one year they turned a $20 billion surplus into a $27 billion deficit,’’ was around the third sentence Morrison uttered in his bid to retain office, “they’’ being the Australian Labor Party.

It’s a soundbite you can expect to hear repeated so many times over the next five weeks you may be tempted to seek asylum in a more sympathetic, far-off land, such as the Republic of Congo.

Government House this is not. Picture: Vince Caligiuri/Getty Images

Morrison then said something that may appear to be a statement of the bleeding obvious, but which he seemed determined to elucidate by way of urgent clarification:

“You vote for me, you’ll get me. You vote for Bill Shorten and you’ll get Bill Shorten.’’

While that profundity was being absorbed by the nation, the said Bill Shorten was preparing himself for his destiny in Moonee Ponds, a delightful Melbourne inner city suburb but not one necessarily graced with a name projecting the gravitas required of a prime ministerial aspirant.

Shorten could have domiciled himself in Tenterfield or Parkes or even Gundagai to add a dab of patriotic sheen to his leap out of the starting barrier.

My background is better than your background. Picture: Adam Taylor

But Moonee Ponds it was, if only because Dame Edna Everage’s birth place is where Shorten also happens to live, and from Moonee Ponds Shorten delivered his first comment of the campaign which was:

“I’m ready to deliver a fair go for Australia. Who’s with me?”

That broke a golden rule defence lawyers, and not a few more pragmatic politicians, have long lived by which is: “Never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to.’’

But it served its purpose to break the ice of the campaign, and will inevitably be answered on May 18 which, from our present position, suddenly appears such a long, long way off.