Scott Morrison tries to switch focus from tittle-tattle texts to tax

Scott Morrison departs the chamber while still aiming potshots at Anthony Albanese during question time on Wednesday in Parliament House, Canberra. Picture: Gary Ramage

Anthony Albanese is desperate to talk about texts, not tax.

Scott Morrison is desperate to talk about the economy, not ignominy.

The Opposition Leader wants to keep the political debate focused on the Prime Minister’s handling of allegations of sexual assault in Parliament House and the leaking of embarrassing texts.

Morrison and Josh Frydenberg are trying to manhandle the political debate away from “media speculation and gossip” about texts denigrating the PM and back to the economic recovery from Covid-19 - the Coalition’s strongest hope for re-election.

On the second day of the only 10 parliamentary sitting days left before the election in May, Labor asked six of its seven questions about the respect for women report arising from allegations of rape in a minister’s office and leaked texts describing Morrison as a liar and a hypocrite.

Opposition Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers, who got no questions on Tuesday, asked one question on tax on Wednesday.

Coalition MPs asked one question about the treatment of women in parliament, one about floods, two about the economy and three about national security or border protection.

Labor shifted from Tuesday’s concentration on the aged-care crisis to protection for women and sensational leaked texts, with one almost obligatory economic question in two days.

Seeking to blackguard Morrison further and build on more than a year of denigrating him, Labor cited an alleged text from former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian saying he was horrible and demanded Barnaby Joyce admit he still thought the PM was a liar.

Defence Minister Peter Dutton sought to destroy Labor’s credibility by accusing Albanese of using gossip while Morrison called for the opposition to “bring on” a character test between him and the Labor leader.

The government’s offensive strategy is to lock the current Labor leadership into the failures of the Rudd and Gillard governments on border protection and extended spending, to highlight Albanese’s years as a flag-bearer for Labor’s left proposing new and higher taxes and point to the jobs recovery after the pandemic recession.

Frydenberg has now taken on the role of a Treasurer not only prepared to sell a positive story but also to weaponise Labor’s uneven history on tax and paint a negative picture of Albanese, just as Peter Costello so successfully undermined the economic credibility of Labor leaders.

Morrison has suffered mightily because of Albanese’s relentlessly negative attacks but now, perhaps too late, the Coalition is trying to draw public attention from “tittle-tattle” texts and back to tax.

Labor is on a determined path to personalise attacks on Morrison but needs to be careful the public doesn’t start to demand more talk about tax than texts.