Let’s start with Scott Morrison and the culture war. Today the prime minister once again defended Katherine Deves, his candidate for Warringah, after she called gender reassignment surgery “mutilation”.
Morrison said he wouldn’t use the same language as Deves, but continues to stand by her. The Liberal candidate came under fire during the early stages of the campaign after a series of now-deleted tweets attacking transgender people emerged.
They included false claims that half of trans men are sex offenders, and comparisons between anti-trans activism and opposing the Holocaust.
Since then, Deves has largely shied away from media (despite Morrison’s claims she would not be “cancelled”), until she appeared on Sky News last night to walk back earlier apologies for calling trans people “surgically mutilated and sterilised”.
Facing a grilling from reporters today, the PM claimed gender reversal surgery was “a serious, significant issue” for young adolescents, before being reminded the procedure isn’t available to minors in Australia.
“I’m not a surgeon, I’m not the chief medical officer,” he said.
Amid all that, Morrison managed to find another constituency to fall out with: barristers.
“I don’t care if barristers and lawyers and others up there in Macquarie Street — not in the Parliament but in the barristers’ chambers — disagree with me,” he said, during one of his now frequent attacks on the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). (Of course, real Sydney-heads know the barristers are mainly on Phillip St, while Macquarie St is for the pollies, but I digress).
That drew a swift rebuke from Australian Bar Association boss Matt Collins, who said he was deeply concerned by Morrison’s comments.
“Any person who has no truck with barristers cannot have made a conscientious effort to understand their indispensable contribution to civic society,” he said. Ouch.
Morrison was out in Bennelong today, once held by John Howard. With popular local MP John Alexander retiring, Labor has grown increasingly optimistic about its chances of clawing back the 6.9% margin.
Appearing alongside the prime minister was NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet. In a bit of symmetry, Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese campaigned with Victorian Premier Dan Andrews in Melbourne today.
Neither state leader has featured much during their parties’ respective federal campaigns, despite state premiers’ unprecedented prominence during the past two years, and Perrottet and Andrews in particular essentially leading Australia through the latest phase of the pandemic.
There are a few political and strategic reasons for this. Morrison and Perrottet have famously clashed in the past. During the course of the campaign, the NSW premier has criticised Morrison’s comments on the state’s ICAC and distanced himself from the PM’s comments on minority government.
And at today’s press conference Perrottet refused to join the PM in attacking Labor’s housing equity scheme, saying he was “open-minded” about new policy.
The distance between Andrews, meanwhile, could be about avoiding what some Labor strategists worry is a rumble of “anti-Dan” sentiment, particularly in Melbourne’s outer suburbs among voters wearied by two years of pandemic restrictions.
Certainly the Liberals think that vote is out there for the taking, running attack billboards with Andrews and Albanese together, alongside the words “Higher taxes. Mandates. Lockdowns”.
But equally, both Perrottet and Andrews have their own elections to fight within the next 12 months, and might feel it best to have some clear air between their own brands and the current shitshow.
In other news, Alan Tudge has been found. The cabinet minister-cum-backbencher (somehow he’s been both during this campaign), stood down in December following allegations he had an abusive relationship with former staffer Rachelle Miller, which he denies.
Tudge, who has essentially been in hiding during the campaign, was tracked down by a Sky News reporter in his safe seat of Aston. He said he intended to return as education minister if the government is reelected.
“The prime minister has made clear that should we be reelected and I’m in a position to step back up, I will do so,” he said.
