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RUBY:

From SM, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

As an election inches closer, both Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the Labor leader Anthony Albanese are seeking to define their public images.

For Albanese - that’s involved an appearance on 60 minutes, and - after a near death experience - a so-called glow-up.

For the prime minister, it’s about turning negatives into positives, and attacking his opponent.

Today, columnist for The Saturday Paper Paul Bongiorno on the battle lines being drawn, and just how personal this contest is likely to get.

It’s Friday, March 18.

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RUBY:

Paul, let's begin with Anthony Albanese's appearance on 60 Minutes, because this was obviously Labor's answer to the now infamous episode in which Scott Morrison played ukulele for Karl Stefanovic. So walk me through Albanese's episode, how do you think it went?

Archival Tape -- Karl Stefanovic (60 Minutes):

“There'd be little argument from most fair minded Australians. Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese is a nice enough bloke…”

PAUL:

Oh, well, Ruby, you have to first know that Albanese's campaign team laid down parameters for his appearance. The main one being protection of his domestic privacy and no gimmicks. They wanted Albanese to appear dignified and prime ministerial, and I have to say Channel 9 obliged.

Archival Tape -- Karl Stefanovic (60 Minutes):

“Tonight, though, the real Albo emerges from the shadows…”

PAUL:

So from the first graphic with Albanese and his serious glasses and business suit looking calmly reassuring, with a shot of Scott Morrison over his shoulder, wearing a polo shirt and playing that ukulele, the tone was set.

Archival Tape -- Albanese’s friend (60 Minutes):

“I think he's a man of great integrity, and I think he's going to do a fantastic job as prime minister…
(Crowd begins singing Happy Birthday…)”

PAUL:

The opening scenes in an Italian trattoria in his electorate with his mates established one side of his roots. His amici all told us what a great bloke he was as they wished him happy birthday and presented him with a candle stuck in the middle of a carbohydrate loaded cannoli. Ruby, he didn't eat it.

Archival Tape -- Karl Stefanovic (60 Minutes):

“You can't have your Italian cake…and eat it too.”

(Birthday applause)

Archival Tape -- Karl Stefanovic (60 Minutes):

“You can only look. You can't touch.”

Archival Tape -- Anthony Albanese:

“I can't! Now you’re just playing with me…”

PAUL:

That set the scene for Karl Stefanovic to raise the most obvious evidence of the makeover of Albo to ‘Anthony Albanese: alternative prime minister’; namely his extraordinary weight loss.

Archival Tape -- Karl Stefanovic (60 Minutes):

“This is the mother of all, as the kids say, glow-ups. I barely recognise you! Do you know what a glow-up means?”

Archival Tape -- Anthony Albanese:

“Yeah, I do (laughs)…”

PAUL:

There was a very sensitive telling of Albanese's log cabin story, his single, chronically ill mother and his love for her, and also after her death, he tracked down his Italian father for an emotional first meeting.

But there was also hardball politics.

Albanese didn't quibble with the term liar being applied to Scott Morrison.

Archival Tape -- Anthony Albanese:

“Scott Morrison's got an issue with the truth.”

Archival Tape -- Karl Stefanovic (60 Minutes):

“You honestly think Scott Morrison's a liar?”

Archival Tape -- Anthony Albanese:

“Well, he has said things to me that are simply untrue. He stood up in parliament…why he did it is beyond me…and said that he texted me about where he was going when he went to Hawaii. That's not true…”

PAUL:

And the Labor campaign team was thrilled with their candidate's performance. A key strategist told me “we couldn't have asked more of Albo.”

RUBY:

Mm. And so what did you take out of the show, Paul, in terms of where it places both Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese going into the election?

PAUL:

Well, the really interesting thing was the ratings. The show won its time slot in all five mainland capitals and attracted 60,000 more viewers than the heavily promoted ‘Meet the Morrisons’ episode a couple of weeks back. It indicates the level of interest in the alternative prime minister, and it gives some indication of the public's curiosity, if not enthusiasm, for him.

In the latest Newspoll, and this is an even bigger worry for Morrison, Albanese has closed the gap on the preferred prime minister rating. He and Morrison are now neck and neck. In February last year, Morrison had a 35 point lead. That's some slide.

RUBY:

Right and so how is Scott Morrison responding? Did he engage directly with Anthony Albanese's character, or his apparently increasing popularity?

PAUL:

Well, Morrison's response really was frankly bizarre.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison (on 6PR):

“You know, I'm not pretending to be anyone else. You know, I'm not pretending to be Bob Hawke or. John Howard or Kevin Rudd or, well, Mark McGowan or anyone else.”

PAUL:

He's on the offensive criticising Albanese's weight loss, saying it makes him a fake.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison (on 6PR):

“You know, I'm still wearing the same glasses I was a couple of years ago and and still wearing the same suits, because that's not what makes a prime minister. What makes a prime minister is being able to manage the economy and keep Australians safe..”

PAUL:

Morrison says he's the same weight he was when he came to the leadership

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison (on Paul Murray Live):

“I weigh about the same...

(crowd cheers)

…and I don't mind a bit of Italian cake either! I'm happy in my own skin and I'm not pretending to be anyone else…”

PAUL:

You know, it's highly significant that this bagging of Albanese's self-discipline initially came on Paul Murray Live; the Sky Pay-TV after dark show is a sanctuary for boofy blokes who love their utes and live in the outer suburbs, and this demographic was the one that played a big part in delivering Morrison his surprise election win.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison (on Paul Murray Live):

“Well, you know, I could say I could surf like Kelly Slater, but that doesn’t mean I can, and I can assure you, I don’t and can’t! And Labor can say that they would have the same defence policy as us…”

PAUL:

He obviously hopes mocking Albanese's diet is going to play well with these guys. But the fact is, the prime minister this time needs a lot more than these blokes to win.

I spoke to Liberal MPs this week and the message they're picking up in their electorates is clear: Scott Morrison has lost the mob. Basically, people have stopped listening to him.

RUBY:

We'll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Paul, despite whatever unpopularity Scott Morrison might be dealing with at this moment in time, he is known as this great campaigner and that's supposedly what enabled him to win the last election. So do you think that he does have a strategy to turn all of this around in time?

PAUL:

Well, he assures his party room he knows how to win and they should stick with him to reverse his fortunes. Morrison needs to turn his negatives into positives, and he's already pushing hard on the fact that although he may have made mistakes, he's steered the economy through catastrophic bushfires and floods and a once in 100 year pandemic. And he keeps saying that Albanese lacks this experience, but it is an issue for him, too. He has to convince voters he's learnt the lessons and has the corporate memory in government to do better. And I have to say the evidence is that he lacks the empathy to have learnt anything much after the “I don't hold a hose mate” excuse for his bushfire response came the bureaucratic and late response to the Queensland and New South Wales floods.

Archival Tape -- Mayor of Lismore:

“You know, we came with high expectations for the visit and I’ve got to say that we're probably…bitterly disappointed would be an understatement…”

PAUL:

The Lismore mayor says it was humanity devoid.

Archival Tape -- Tracy Grimshaw (A Current Affair):

“So was anything that the prime minister said today going to be enough to to mollify people and to appease people?”

Archival Tape -- Mayor of Lismore:

“Short answer: no. You know, we need serious commitment and whether it comes from the state in the form of dome parity or whether Scott Morrison decides that he's made a bit of a mistake here, we've got half a billion dollars of needs in Lismore City Council alone…”

PAUL:

So the biggest mountain Morrison has to climb is himself, and he has little time in which to do it. The federal election will have to be called within a month soon after the do-or-die budget on March 29.

RUBY:

Right. And so obviously, Paul, the budget is firming up as this key moment for Scott Morrison ahead of the election. We still don't know exactly what's going to be in the budget, but do you have any insight into what it might contain?

PAUL:

Well, MPs are definitely hoping there'll be something in there for voters hurting from cost of living pressures. Lines are being fed to the media that tax cuts can't be fast tracked or responsibly afforded, and Morrison is promising a fiscally responsible and restrained budget. But I have to say, if offering some tax relief means giving himself a better chance of clinging to power, can anyone imagine him not taking it?

According to some economists, the most appealing option would be to increase the low and middle income tax offset and keep it in place for one more year, that is until after the election. The offset is worth up to $1080 and already cost the budget $8 billion a year. Any increase would be expensive, but at least it gives the government a selling line.

Archival Tape -- News Anchor (7 News):

“The Morrison government is under increasing pressure to address the rising cost of living with prices for petrol and dozens of household essentials soaring-...”

Archival Tape -- News Reporter (ABC Radio):

“Australians are coming to grips with petrol at more than $2 a litre-...”

Archival Tape -- News Anchor (7 News):

“Diesel now costs too much for transport companies to absorb…”

PAUL:

The other cost of living issue is the exponential rise in petrol prices. Morrison has no easy answer here either. A cut or freeze for fuel excise will still leave millions struggling to fill their tanks. It also means fuel prices feeding into supply chain costs and retail price rises.

RUBY:

And Paul, last week, you and I spoke about the pressure that was building around Scott Morrison's leadership, partly related to these same issues. So has that developed at all?

PAUL:

Well, Ruby, there was a report this week that Peter Dutton is contacting like minded MPs for catch ups to discuss the government's dire situation and the prime minister's hopelessness. The purpose here is less about changing the leadership before the election. Rather, it's about laying claim to it after the widely expected loss, where Dutton would be in a race with Josh Frydenberg, and a leadership team of Dutton with current Communications Minister Paul Fletcher as his deputy and treasurer, is being mooted.

The prospect, though, of a move on Morrison in two weeks time, while it's not discounted, is thought to be highly unlikely. There's a real fear that Morrison would immediately advise the Governor-General not to replace him, but rather to call an election. In other words…he'd blow up the government.

RUBY:

Right, OK, and I suppose, Paul, that all goes to just how personal this is when there's someone like Scott Morrison trying to retain power because he's making comments about Albanese's weight. There's this defensiveness against attacks from within his own party. So is this just the beginning, Paul? Do you think that we're going to see more personal attacks, a real, real negative campaign in the weeks ahead?

PAUL:

Well, Ruby, all Australian federal elections are bruising affairs, but I have to say they get really ugly when a government who was expected to lose last time is again staring down the barrel of a significant defeat.
Morrison didn't get to the top of the greasy pole, you know, by playing it nice, and we're already seeing evidence of this.

Can it become more strident? Well, it certainly can. But you know, the risk for the government is this will reinforce the perception it is hopelessly desperate.

RUBY:

Paul, thank you so much for your time.

PAUL:

Thank you, Ruby. Bye.

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RUBY:

Also in the news

The International Court of Justice has ordered Russia to stop hostilities in Ukraine, after Ukraine lodged a case against Russia in the UN’s top court.

The news comes after Ukrainian officials accused Russian forces of bombing a theatre that was being used as a shelter space for roughly a thousand people in the besieged city of Mariupol.

In a speech on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden labelled the Russian President Vladimir Putin as a ‘war criminal.’ Biden announced an additional 800 million in military assistance for Ukraine, saying that the Russian invasion was producing “appalling devastation and horror”.

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And Australia recorded 23 deaths nationally from Covid-19 on Thursday.

Western Australia recorded more than 30,000 active cases of Covid-19 for the first time. WA Premier Mark McGowan said the hospitalisation rate was stable and that authorities expect the state is a few days away from their caseload peak.

In the past two weeks, both Victoria and NSW have also seen the daily tally of new infections increase as the Omicron subvariant continues to spread.

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7am is a daily show from The Monthly and The Saturday Paper. It’s produced by Elle Marsh, Kara Jensen-Mackinnon, Anu Hasbold and Alex Gow.

Our senior producer is Ruby Schwartz and our technical producer is Atticus Bastow.

Brian Campeau mixes the show. Erik Jensen is our editor-in-chief.

Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See you next week.