Scott Morrison didn’t mention Anthony Albanese once in his first speech of the election year to the National Press Club.
That political fight will come soon enough.
The more immediate task for the Prime Minister is to ensure the election doesn’t become a default referendum on pandemic management.
To that end, his speech had a singular purpose: a deliberate act of contrition designed to channel voter anger over another disrupted summer.
Morrison admitted to mistakes he had made – along with an entreaty that there was no guide book bequeathed to the government from pandemics past.
Two things he said he would have done differently were militarising the vaccine rollout earlier, and being less optimistic about summer – having initially underestimated the spread of Omicron.
At the same time, he sought to establish a solid defence of the government’s record, lest he undermine an essential truth that the government got a lot right as well.
It was an admission to specific and limited mistakes: “It’s fair enough that this disappointment leads you to ask, ‘Couldn’t you have done more, couldn’t this have been avoided – after all, aren’t you responsible?’,” he said. “I get that … I haven’t got everything right. And I’ll take my fair share of the criticism and the blame.
“It goes with the job.”
This is what Morrison believes people needed to hear, with the first Newspoll of the year on Monday revealing the depth of voter antipathy being directed his way rather than at the premiers – who, it could be argued, have their own apologies to make.
He also addressed the great economic disconnect that appears to be emerging as inflation and real-world experience jar with the high-level narrative the government had been hoping would carry its economic message.
It was a calculated play from a PM who now recognises that perhaps the greatest electoral risk is a perception of being out of touch with voters.
This was a “steady as it goes” speech, with the focus still on the pandemic rather than the looming political fight – a reflection of the fact that for most Australians, this issue still clouds out just about everything else.
There would be those in his partyroom who may have been looking for a stronger signal from the PM as to what the political strategy is from here.
Morrison’s tone was designed to reassure those colleagues that there was no need to panic.
Not yet anyway.
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