The Sketch: Frankly, he does seem to give a damn

Sticks and stones may break my bones but don’t you dare name a recession after me.

“You’ve referred to the current economic situation as the Morrison Recession. That’s a bit unfair, isn’t it?” John Laws probed Labor frontbencher Jim Chalmers on Monday.

“I don’t think so, John,” Chalmers said. “It’s a statement of fact.”

Laws interjected: “No, it’s not. No, it’s not.”

Chalmers countered: “Scott Morrison is the Prime Minister, and we’re in the deepest recession we’ve had for almost a century and in our view, some of the decisions he’s taken around JobKeeper and some of the other decisions have made the recession deeper than it needs to be and the unemployment queues longer than they need to be. More important than what we call it is what we do about it, and that’s what the budget has to be about.”

Laws paused before concluding: “OK, hopefully it will be.”

Chalmers wasn’t the first to use the partisan phrase. The etymology can be traced to a Chris Bowen press conference on September 5. If Bowen had a background in marketing, Labor could have gone with the much cleaner “The ­Morrecession”.

Like ReTurnbull, Ruddmentum or Jacindamania.

Cut to the Today Show, where Karl Stefanovic threw Morrison a Dorothy Dixer just after dawn on Wednesday. “How much does it vex you when Labor calls it the Morrison recession?” he said.

Morrison responded: “I think they embarrass themselves when they say that. They must be the only person who doesn’t understand there’s been a COVID-19 pandemic. I think that shows they’re fairly clueless about what’s going on … that, frankly, dismisses the impact on ordinary Australians … frankly, it just shows an embarrassing lack of understanding.”

A bit rich, given his Treasurer managed to utter the R-word only twice between April and Aug­ust.

The red is the new black debate didn’t end there. By question time on Thursday, things had been turned up to 11. The ­Coalition’s ops team deployed the backbench but Anthony Albanese hit back: “Why is this government racking up a trillion dollars of Liberal debt during the Morrison recession while making it harder for a 36-year-old mum or dad with a child who’s started primary school?”

The Prime Minister rose. “In the early 90s, there was a program called Job Start, introduced to follow the Keating recession, Mr Speaker. The Keating recession, Mr Speaker.”

So nice, he said it twice!

The week’s wordy pièce de résistance, however, goes to rural Love Guru Michael McCormack for this claim: “Grow agricultural output, grow water, by growing jobs.” Just add H2O?