A shear master stroke as PM turns on the country charm

Scott Morrison has mopped the campaign-trail floor with Bill Shorten, and if the polls continue to trend up for the Coalition, he could retain minority government with the help of Tasmanian voters, writes Simon Bevilacqua.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison tries his hand at shearing a sheep, with help from shearer James Amey, right, at a drought-stricken farm outside of Dubbo. Picture: Gary Ramage

SCOTT Morrison has mopped the campaign-trail floor with Bill Shorten, and if the polls continue to trend up for the Coalition, he could retain minority government with the help of Tasmanian voters.

This is remarkable considering just months ago Australians were so furious with the likes of Morrison, Tony Abbott, Peter Dutton, Mathias Cormann and Barnaby Joyce.

Their self-obsession has been monumental.

Party machinations and personal battles have raged for six farcical years.

Aussies seethed when Abbott delivered the most mean-spirited budget in memory, dividing the nation into lifters and leaners and coming down hard on those least able to afford it.

Images of Cormann and Joe Hockey smoking cigars after delivering their budget of shame showed they were out of touch with the daily struggle of so many.

Morrison taunted the Opposition with a lump of coal in Parliament, and continues to champion the industry, especially in Queensland, where the proposed Adani mine is a vote-winner.

Malcolm Turnbull then shafted Abbott, promising an inclusive approach and to address climate policy. Voters bought it again, but the new PM was largely ineffective, having sold his soul for the top job.

Deputy PM Joyce lost his job after a media storm about his affair with a staffer.

Then Peter Dutton tried to shaft Turnbull and in a week of political insanity was outplayed by the canny Morrison, who became PM, for now at least.

Women in the Coalition complained of bullying and some walked from politics.

It’s been mayhem. Coalition infighting has easily surpassed Labor’s Kevin Rudd-Julia Gillard circus in its shameless self-obsession.

But despite this and only two weeks from election day, Morrison has emerged a potential winner.

I have not witnessed a more lopsided campaign.

If the poll trend upwards for the Coalition rises much more, a Morrison government could even be elected in its own right. On its current trajectory, barring a major campaign

slip-up, it will retain power in minority.

Morrison’s magic stems from his advertising nous.

Before politics he was New Zealand’s Tourism and Sport director, involved in creating the very successful “100% Pure New Zealand” campaign. He was also Tourism Australia managing director during Lara Bingle’s “So where the bloody hell are you?” campaign.

He knows how to sell things, including himself.

The media is full of images of him shearing sheep, drinking beer, going to the footy, eating pies and wearing hi-vis.

Other politicians look awkward in such photo shoots, their vests and hard hats askew, but Morrison looks every bit the site foreman.

He presents as a likable knockabout, a no-nonsense good bloke who could replace Scott Cam as presenter of The Block.

Meanwhile, Abbott, Dutton, Cormann and Eric Abetz are hidden away with their dirty laundry.

The Coalition has cast the fight as Morrison versus Shorten because polling consistently shows it leads in the preferred PM stakes.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his wife Jenny enjoy a beer at Agfest on Thursday. Picture: AAP

Voters do not warm to Shorten, and in the ring against True Blue Morrison the Labor leader has Buckley’s, especially in rural electorates such as Braddon and Bass, where Scott Cam-types hold court in the front bar of the local most nights of the week.

I reckon many voters in towns such as Sheffield, Wynyard and Smithton will buy the Morrison pitch, and the Liberals will win Braddon. They could go close in Bass too.

I don’t blame northern Tasmanian voters. Morrison is convincing. Like Harrison Ford as Hans Solo in Star Wars, he falls neatly into the role.

But like so much in politics and Hollywood, it’s an illusion.

Morrison is no more dinky-di than Shorten, he’s just a better actor.

Regardless of where they started in life, both now enjoy rare privilege.

After May 18, Morrison will return to the haute cuisine of Canberra’s finest restaurants where meat pies and beer are as common as hi-vis vests and sheep.

He will depart the bush and the ’burbs, leaving Aussies struggling on farms, in offices, on the dole and sleeping rough in parks to ask: “Where the bloody hell are you?”

It will be business as usual.

Dutton, Cormann, Joyce, Abetz and all those with whom we were so angry, perhaps even Abbott, will waltz into another term, emboldened.

They will be back despite the dysfunction and scandal; despite Australians becoming destitute while banks and executives rake it in; despite rents going through the roof; despite wages stagnating; despite power bills soaring; despite climate policy stalling; despite the health system collapsing; despite refugees being treated as criminals; and despite gross Federal Government debt being almost double what the Coalition inherited in 2013.

The Coalition has had six years.

If you employed a building firm to construct your dream house and turned up on site to find the builders had done bugger all and had spent weeks on the job brawling among themselves about who’s boss, you’d boot them off your property in the blink of an eye.

You wouldn’t give a fig if a Scott Cam-type foreman sauntered up from the motley crew of builders hiding behind the back fence and quipped: “Don’t worry mate, we’ll get to work tomorrow.”

He’d be shown the door.