The final week: Why Scott Morrison is feeling upbeat
A week out from polling day, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has appropriated Kevin Rudd’s famous phrase from the 2007 campaign. Plus, what happened when Sharri Markson took her baby son to the interview.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison will resist pressure to outline a bold agenda in the final week of the election campaign, claiming Bill Shorten is “dressing up” big spending as a vision.
A week out from polling day, Mr Morrison appropriated Kevin Rudd’s famous phrase from the 2007 campaign and warned of Mr Shorten’s agenda: “This reckless spending must not start.”
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In an exclusive interview with The Saturday Telegraph, a confident and upbeat Mr Morrison said the contest was now so tight that he was preparing not only for the option of minority but majority government.
“The contestability of this election is extremely close,” Mr Morrison said.
”I knew what had to be done from the day I was elected by my party as prime minister to the day of the election. Hence my strong belief that this (a win) was of course possible and obviously now that we’re a lot closer to the day, others are now sharing that view.”
Mr Morrison believes he can claim an unlikely victory, depending on the outcome of a handful of marginal seats, such as Wentworth, Dobell, Indi, Lindsay and Herbert.
“I have always been in this to win this election as a majority government,” he said. “For me, it’s never been about saving furniture, for me it’s been about winning a third term for this government.”
But Mr Morrison declined to say whether he would remain in parliament or as Opposition leader if he loses next Saturday.
While he has resisted calls to outline an agenda beyond delivering a stronger economy, he will still announce a range of “practical measures” for women, starting with a program to help mothers who have been out of the workforce for more than two years get back into the game.
He also said additional funding to tackle youth suicide would be his first and highest priority, saying he had personally been touched by the tragedy of someone close to him taking their own life.
Mr Morrison rejected the assertion that Australians need a bold, new vision from their political leader.
“What we’re offering is that practical, sensible, responsible government which allows them (Australians) to plan for the future,” he said.
“They have a vision of working hard, supporting a family, buying a home, saving money for their retirement. That’s their vision. My vision is that they get to do that.”
Mr Morrison referenced Kevin Rudd’s famous 2007 campaign launch line when, instead of matching John Howard on spending, the Labor leader — falsely as it turned out — campaigned as a fiscal conservative saying: “This reckless spending must stop.”
“I want to make sure Labor’s reckless spending doesn’t start,” Mr Morrison said.
“The other thing I’ll say is people like to dress up big spending as vision.
“Kevin Rudd pretended to be a fiscal conservative and he proved not to be, he ended up having one of the biggest spending programs in Australia’s history and Bill Shorten looks set to exceed it.”
He described his one-man campaign as “presidential” but, while admitting he hadn’t been able to rely on help from seasoned campaigners like Julie Bishop, said he didn’t need anyone to “hold my hand.” Based on his record in treasury, social services and border security, voters knew he did not need to be “propped up by others.”
“Campaigns these days are very much presidential so I think that’s how people see them. They want to know that the person they want to elect as prime minister is up to the job,” he said.
The turnaround in the Coalition’s fortunes leading into the campaign’s final days is the result, Mr Morrison indicated, of eight months of strategy.
Drawing on his experience as a former NSW Liberal Party state director, Mr Morrison had a clear view of what needed to be done from the time he was elevated to the job after the party tore down Malcolm Turnbull.
“I knew we would deliver a budget, we would (resolve) the issues we were contesting with at that time, I would bring the party together, I would focus our efforts on the election and on the campaign, on the policies we were taking forward and the position we’d be promoting,” he said.
While a hung parliament is a possibility, he said he was not courting the crossbench.
BABY MAKES THREE IN INTERVIEW ON ELECTION TRAIL
Taking my four-month-old baby on the election campaign trail so that I could interview the Prime Minister was always going to be a high-risk manoeuvre.
On board our flight from Canberra to Port Macquarie, while Morrison’s advisers spoke about the debate against Bill Shorten the night before, I sang “Gulumph went the little green frog”, while eavesdropping to get the latest intel.
When we went into the PM’s private cabin, my son Raphi looked back and forth intently between Morrison and his chief of staff Yaron Finklestein while we spoke about the campaign.
So far, so good.
After a pit-stop at a seniors’ centre, where ScoMo called Bingo while I played white noise and rocked Raphi to sleep, we went to a cafe for our formal sit-down.
It was all going smoothly, until 32 minutes and 18 seconds into the interview when Raphi, seated on my lap, knocked over a glass of water onto the PM’s mobile phone.
Ignoring my horrified and repeated apologies, Morrison did not even pause mid-sentence as he continued speaking about Labor’s big-spending agenda, while an adviser swept in to dry his phone.
Damp mobile aside, one day I hope to tell Raphi how proud I am of him for putting up with a half-hour interview, three plane trips, plus numerous bus and taxi rides, with barely a tear.
WORKING CHECK-UP TO HELP WOMEN
By Anthony Galloway
Thousands of Australian women will get free checks to help them with their career under a $75 million plan promised by the Coalition.
Sessions will include help with job interviews and polishing up computer skills, as well as professional development and advice.
The checks will be available to up to 40,000 women, with the focus on those who have taken time off to start or raise a family or to look after their grandparents.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the initiative would help carers, but particularly women who “have found themselves in the sandwich of caring for young children and elderly parents”.
He said trying to get back into the workforce after more than two years can be “overwhelming” for mums.
“Sometimes people decide not to go back in because it looks too hard and it may not be as hard as they think,” the PM said.
“For a lot of people in lower to middle income areas, it isn’t necessarily a choice (to go back to work), it’s a necessity — and so to make that process easier and more achievable is important.
“I think we need to make sure we’re making life easier for Australians and particularly women.”
The new initiative would start with a “checkpoint session” to help people step back into — or step up — their careers after two or more years out of the workforce to care for their family.
Minister for Women Kelly O’Dwyer said the mid-career checks would give working women options based on their needs, interests and objectives.
“We want to help women to build their financial security by helping them to get the job they want,” she said.
Research shows 64 per cent of women have taken a career break compared to 49 per cent of men.
Challenges re-entering the workforce were experienced by 66 per cent of women, with workers reporting their skills were perceived as out of date.
Many other older women are returning to work after realising retirement incomes were not enough to live on.
EARLY BIRDS MAKING THE POLLIES SQUIRM
By Clarissa Bye
Aussies are flocking to cast pre-poll votes at this election, with new figures showing a staggering 1.64 million have already made their choice at an early voting centre.
At the same stage of the last federal election in 2016 only 900,000 had voted in advance.
But it’s a trend that has politicians worried, as they’ve had to pull volunteers from doorknocking and shopping centres to man the country’s more than 600 pre-poll centres.
This time around the pre-poll period is three weeks, one day more than at the last federal election.
On Thursday alone, 243,000 voters attended an early voting centre, the Australian Electoral Commission said in its latest update.
Early votes are meant to be reserved for sick people, those working on a Saturday, voters with religious reasons or travellers who can’t get to a booth on May 18.
But because there is no proof required, many more Australians are taking advantage of the convenience and lack of queues.
One Liberal Party staffer in Western Sydney said her team had been forced to seek more volunteers in order to keep a presence at multiple pre-poll centres in the electorate.
“It’s certainly geared up more nowadays, we’ve had to factor it in,” she said.
One of the highest turnouts of early voters is in the NSW north coast seat of Cowper where more than 14,300 people have lodged their vote so far in the contest between independent Rob Oakeshott and the Nationals’ Pat Conaghan.
The AEC is also expecting many more postal votes to come in, after receiving approximately 1.4 million applications for postal ballot papers.
It has also run 558 mobile polling teams visiting 3000 nursing homes, hospitals and remote locations.
The trend has been gathering pace in recent years.
In 2016, an estimated 31 per cent of the Australian electorate voted early.
The AEC has promised the record number of pre-poll votes will be counted on the night and won’t delay a result.
WITH A WEEK TO GO, THE PRIZE IS ANYONE’S
Analysis, by Sharri Markson
Scott Morrison has done the maths and knows this election is winnable.
Despite the majority of commentary saying Bill Shorten’s win is a certainty next weekend, it is not.
The outcome of the federal election is a live and evolving contest.
And here’s why.
Morrison, with the Coalition sitting on 74 seats now, is very confident he’ll win Wentworth, Lindsay, Indi and Herbert, which would take him to 78 seats.
Then there are a further five seats in contention of which the Liberals could win a couple: Dobell on the Central Coast, Solomon in the NT, Cowan in WA and Bass and Braddon in Tasmania.
Their weakest seats, which Labor hopes to pick up, are Chisholm, Dunkley, Corangamite and La Trobe in Victoria, Swan in WA, and Reid, Gilmore, Cowper and Warringah in NSW.
The Liberal Party expects to hold onto Corangamite and Gilmore, at this point, but will almost certainly lose Chisholm and Dunkley.
As Morrison said to me this week, the results in a handful of seats around Australia will determine any number of outcomes for this election: a majority government for the Coalition or Labor, or minority government for either.
This is why the federal election is a genuine, and exciting, battle.
Shorten is not enjoying a mood for change like there was when Howard, Rudd or Abbott first swept to office.
It’s extraordinary because six months ago, the election for the Liberals was barely considered contestable.
That’s why the likes of Christopher Pyne, Julie Bishop and others quit politics.
It is now, as Morrison puts it, “extremely close”.
Shorten’s team, who have already been divvying up the spoils of office, should be growing nervous.
ALP’S BILL SHOCK: COSTLYING REVEAL HUGE TAX & SPEND AGENDA
By Anna Caldwell
Labor is trumpeting bigger budget surpluses than the government, but its policy costings has sparked a fresh Coalition assault on Bill Shorten’s financial credentials and high-tax agenda.
Releasing Labor’s costings yesterday, shadow treasurer Chris Bowen promised larger budget surpluses every year over the next decade, reaching $21.7 billion in 2022-23, or 1 per cent of GDP — four years earlier than under the Coalition.
To get there Labor is clawing back $154 billion in revenue from its controversial franking credit, capital gains tax, superannuation and family trust changes.
It is also banking $285 billion from scrapping the Coalition’s second round of tax cuts from 2022.
But the government seized on what it called a $149 billion “black hole” in the costings — the fact that they do not account for promised boosts to increases in Newstart, foreign aid and research funding.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the costings also did not factor in the impact Labor’s massive tax hit on housing, retirees, family businesses and superannuation would have on the economy.
“What the Labor Party fails to do in these costings is explain the major and detrimental economic impacts these higher taxes will have across the economy,” Mr Frydenberg said. “How many Australians will lose their jobs, how much will their wages fall and how much will economic growth and economic activity be affected by Labor’s $387 billion of higher taxes?”
The government said Labor’s promise to increase the foreign aid budget would cost $68 billion, its promise to lift refugee intake would cost $6 billion, its increase to Newstart would cost $39 billion, and a promised rise in science spending, $36 billion.
These costs were “nowhere to be found” in the budget, Mr Frydenberg said.
There was just a $1.6 billion pledge for foreign aid over four years in the costings.
Mr Bowen said he would fix Australia’s “two-class tax system”. He was at pains to repeat that 96 per cent of Australians would not be affected by the tax changes.
Labor’s finance spokesman Jim Chalmers claimed the “biggest lie” of the election campaign was that the Coalition were better managers of the economy.
“Saying that the Liberals have done a good job of managing the economy is a bit like saying that Clive Palmer did a good job building a dinosaur park,” he said.
Labor is lauding its push to target multinational tax, but the government said this would raise only a small fraction of the money being reaped from discretionary trusts and taxing superannuation.
“The policy is not targeting those who are well off. It’s targeting those who are aspirational,” Mr Frydenberg said.
LABOR’S ELECTION PROMISES TOP $86B
By Edward Boyd
Labor has made election spending promises totalling a whopping $86.6 billion, compared to Coalition pledges adding up to a comparatively tiny $9.8 billion, according to an analysis of the two sides’ own announcements.
The Saturday Telegraph pored over hundreds of individual announcements made in speeches, emailed press releases and press conference transcripts to compile a comprehensive list of the cash being splashed by both sides in the battle to win votes.
The Telegraph’s line-by-line tally is different to the costings released yesterday by Labor, which take a broad brushstroke approach that makes it very difficult to compare the two.
For example, Labor’s school investment figure of $16.24 billion over ten years would likely include costs for other school-related policies not subject to separate announcements.
In The Telegraph’s tally of promises to date, infrastructure was the single biggest policy area for Labor, with more than $32 billion promised.
This compared to $5.6 billion for the Coalition.
The Telegraph counted announcements made since the day the election was called but included earlier pledges if they were specifically mentioned in an election context.
This meant that several big-ticket items for Labor, including $10 billion for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, were included.
SUNNY PREDICTIONS FALL SHORT OF REALITY
Comment by John Rolfe
After releasing Labor’s forward-looking costings on Friday, shadow treasurer Chris Bowen may as well have named the winner of the 2022 Melbourne Cup.
The prediction would have been about as accurate.
The shadow treasurer vowed Labor would deliver a surplus of 1 per cent of gross domestic product in four years’ time.
But we’ve heard a promise of big surpluses from Labor before — remember Wayne Swan’s pledge of four surpluses in his 2012 Budget speech?
Chris Bowen’s prognostications are scarcely more believable.
Labor’s plans will clearly boost Treasury’s coffers substantially.
But that’s all they are — plans.
Setting aside the economic impact of an international trade war, let’s consider the chances of the Senate making all of Mr Bowen’s dreams a reality. Buckley’s, I’d say.
In recent years it has been notoriously difficult to get the Senate to pass any change that takes money from people.
“If the Senate knocks back the axing of negative gearing — and it will — then which promise is Labor going to break?” one independent expert on fiscal forecasting said last night. “Or is it going to be the surplus target?
“They are living in a best-case scenario world and that’s just not a reality.”
It’s not even a Labor thing.
In 2017 I tallied up the differences between the original estimates the Coalition had made for the Budget position between 2014-15 and 2019-20. Over those six financial years they were $99.3 billion off the mark. Year after year the projections were too optimistic.
Getting tomorrow’s weather forecast right is a challenge.
So how can Mr Bowen say what the government’s revenue and expenses will be in several years’ time?
He can’t.
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