Scott Morrison’s simple pitch is a proven election winner

Scott Morrison’s stewardship through the pandemic and recession has buttressed the Coalition’s marginal electorates and accelerated plans to pick off Labor seats in western Sydney, the NSW central coast and Hunter regions Picture: Dan Peled

Scott Morrison’s election-winning mantra of “fair go for those who have a go” will underpin the ­Coalition’s strategy to eat further into Labor’s traditional heartlands in the suburbs and regions.

The Prime Minister has adopted John Howard’s pragmatic approach in appealing to aspirational Australians – the suburban family, blue-collar worker, first-home buyer and small business owner.

It is a simple pitch and proven winning formula.

When you add into the mix a global pandemic, in which Australia largely avoided the worst health and economic outcomes, increasing geostrategic competition and Chinese aggression, then Labor faces an uphill battle at the next election.

Anthony Albanese’s underdog status isn’t helped by Labor’s policy inertia. In a pandemic media cycle drowning out the opposition’s messaging, Albanese has to move away from sports rorts and personal attacks on Morrison to a more substantive debate.

The NSW Upper Hunter by-election on Saturday again highlighted the power of pandemic incumbency. Ahead of the by-election, a senior federal Labor MP said “they don’t have the baseball bats out for Gladys Berejiklian”, despite the series of scandals engulfing her government.

“They like Gladys. There’s just no mood for change on the ground,” the MP said.

It is an ominous sign ahead of the next federal election, which could be called as early as this year.

The state by-election again showed disaffected Labor voters parking their votes with One Nat­ion, a concern for ALP strategists trying to win back regional Australians who abandoned the party in 2019. Labor’s two-party-­preferred lead over the Coalition belies its low primary vote and Morrison’s personal popularity.

The Prime Minister’s stewardship through the pandemic and recession has buttressed the Coalition’s marginal electorates and accelerated plans to pick off Labor seats in western Sydney, the NSW central coast and Hunter regions.

As long as Labor pontificates over energy policy, tax cuts and climate change targets and remains bogged in negative rhetoric, Morrison will advance the Coalition’s march into ALP territory.

He will promote the personal choice of Australians to make their own decisions and prosper in a post-Covid economy.

Yet it won’t all be smooth sailing. The government must advance at pace the national vaccination rollout, keep the jobs recovery on track and work with state and territory governments to manage quarantine capacity and get Australians home.

While the pandemic landscape has neutralised some of the political minefields confronting a government seeking its fourth term, it also brings great uncertainty.

Anthony Albanese’s underdog status isn’t helped by Labor’s policy inertia. Picture: Ian Currie

At the last election, which Labor assumed it would win, Morrison showed he was prepared to do whatever it took, and Albanese will need to match his relentless campaigning style.

Selling the budget last week, Morrison and Josh Frydenberg blitzed five states and visited more than 26 key seats that the Coalition wants to win or hold. The high-tempo campaigning will continue through to the election.

Morrison’s regional pub sessions contrast with Albanese’s craft brewery visits, with the ­Coalition painting the Labor leader as an inner-city left-winger out of touch with traditional Labor voters.

Albanese, who in January invoked Joe Biden’s US election victory to say he would be “leader of this country after the next election”, failed to hit the mark in what was likely his final budget reply speech.

The speech, headlined by a $10 billion social housing fund, was pitched to Labor’s base and dominated by identity politics rhetoric.

It was a missed opportunity to prosecute how he would do things differently and fed into Morrison’s narrative that Labor has “treated people for decades as victims and that only government can help them”.

Albanese says he wants to drag Labor to the centre after Bill Shorten’s election-losing, big-spending scattergun strategy.

But the election clock is ticking. The Morrison government will tell voters the ALP will impose higher taxes and shut down heavy industry every day that Albanese delays his position on supporting tax cuts for middle and high income earners and what Labor’s climate change targets are.

Morrison will call the election when he thinks he can win with a majority. There are arguments to wait until March but don’t be surprised if he goes early.