Winter is coming but Coalition hopes spring eternal

Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

For the first time since late last winter the mixture of sheer dread and wishful thinking that gripped the Coalition has been replaced by genuine hope that the election is winnable.

The budget afterglow captured by Newspoll has encouraged Liberals and Nationals to dare to dream victory is possible. But they also know it will be possible only if absolutely everything goes right during the short, sharp official campaign, as opposed to the interminable unofficial campaign.

The skirmishes of the past few days — the threatened civil war in Queensland over coal, Malcolm Turnbull shooting Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison with one bullet — are troubling signs of how easily and often disaster can strike, and how fragile is Coalition discipline.

Victorians are convinced they will determine the outcome, although if you listen to Queenslanders, they are the key, while in between the strengthened position in NSW is critical.

The plain fact is that given the maths, because the Coalition is starting from so far behind, with technically 73 seats because of redistributions, defections and by-election losses, every ground campaign in every seat in every state is vital.

If NSW showed the path to redemption last month, Victoria showed last November what Armageddon looked like and, it is true, could deliver it federally. MPs there say although polling has improved, particularly if the names of sitting marginal seat members are attached, the base vote still needs to come up. They report voters are not as angry as they were last year; they have gone quiet, which may or may not be a good sign.

If the Liberals can limit their losses to two seats in Victoria — and the two usually mentioned are Corangamite and Dunkley — then they believe Morrison could flop over the line, maybe with a majority of two, to claim the biggest comeback since Paul Keating trounced John Hewson in 1993. Back then an election thought by the opposition to be unlosable became the sweetest victory of all for Keating, who had toppled Bob Hawke. And it is the one Morrison has had uppermost in his mind from the very first days of his prime ministership.

To replicate that, Morrison has to contain losses in Victoria where the Labor machine is strongest and the Andrews government well embedded. Part of his problem is that what works in Queensland can be toxic in Victoria. Like the Adani coalmine where Morrison faced a diabolic choice, one he hoped could be delayed until after the election, only to have his hand forced by his own MPs.

Queenslanders, Liberal and National alike, were in no mood to cop that. The leaking of senator James McGrath’s threat to call for the sacking of Environment Minister Melissa Price if she did not announce her decision before the election was designed to force the issue. It worked. McGrath, who insists he was not behind the leak, knew the government was stuck between a big lump of coal and a hard place, but his primary concern, his only concern, was jobs in Queensland. One of McGrath’s favourite sayings is “all trouble comes from the north”, which he pinched from John Howard, who learned the hard way the deadly consequences of incurring the wrath of Queenslanders. Undeterred, Morrison let his displeasure show by giving McGrath a flick when he told the media ministers would make decisions after “listening to scientists, not senators listening to themselves”.

Ministers should listen faster. The decision by Price to approve groundwater management plans for the coalmine in the north of the Galilee Basin should have been announced weeks if not months ago to avoid an imbroglio on election eve, and the perception that Price had been bullied into it. But better late than never. The decision not only helps secure seats the Coalition now holds, it could also gain one — Herbert — depending on what Labor does.

Pointing the finger at Josh Frydenberg, who has climate change activists camped permanently outside his office, Queenslanders dismissed the arguments of the Victorians, arguing that people opposed to Adani were never going to vote Liberal anyway. The Treasurer, under challenge from two independents, professes not to be fussed; however, there are fears the decision will galvanise protesters and give them a rallying point for action. Better that than a civil war ignited by the Queenslanders, which would see the house burned down. The threats were not idle.

Adani distracted attention from Morrison’s shock-and-awe campaign against Bill Shorten on electric cars. In a perverse way that was a blessing. At least the fight over coal is real. As is the threat from animal rights activists. Morrison has now switched from lock up your utes to lock up the vegans.

In the face of awesome technological advances speeding up the resolution of problems — like charging or powering non-petrol-driven cars — Morrison was sounding like a Luddite. Not to mention slightly hysterical, which is something he needs to watch.

Because of its potential to cause actual harm, the emergence of militant veganism is a more fertile avenue for vote harvesting, which is where the Prime Minister went yesterday with the announcement of new laws and penalties. His confidence and energy are boundless, in some ways infectious. Optimists scanning electoral maps see possible gains in almost every state, enough to compensate for losses.

They think there is a chance to regain Indi thanks to the retirement of independent Cathy Mc­Gowan, then pick up Braddon in Tasmania, one seat in the Northern Territory and win back Wentworth, Lindsay and possibly Dob­ell in NSW. The anti-Asian sen­timents expressed by former NSW opposition leader Michael Daley are still reverberating in parts of the state, particularly around Reid, which Liberals hope they can hold despite the departure of the popular Craig Laundy. Gains in NSW would more than make up for the possible loss of Warringah. Local lifelong Liberals seem not to be put off by claims Tony Abbott’s oppon­ent, Zali Steggall, is fake Labor or a GetUp stooge

So even though winter is coming, it’s not all doom and gloom. For many Coalition MPs, it feels as if spring has finally sprung.