Trouble at an early hurdle

The favourite has taken a tumble in the Aussie federal election race.

- ELEANOR DE JONG

Lacklustre: Anthony Albanese, left, and Scott Morrison arrive for the leaders' debate, which analysts judged a draw.

What a difference a fortnight makes. When the Australian election campaign got underway in mid-April, Labor leader Anthony Albanese was the clear favourite, both among the seasoned political pundits and in public opinion polls. The job was his for the taking, it seemed.

Scott Morrison, the Liberal coalition Prime Minister since 2018, has spent his term bouncing from one blunder to the next, from fleeing the country for a Hawaiian holiday when the 2019 bushfires were wreaking destruction on the country's east coast, to making insensitive gaffe after gaffe on Canberra's multiple sex scandals and its treatment of women.

Here was a Prime Minister who had been dubbed "Scotty from marketing” for his slick, empty rhetoric; called a liar by President Emmanuel Macron over the scrapping of a submarine deal with France, and famously and publicly loathed by 2021 Australian of the Year, Grace Tame, an advocate for survivors of sexual assault. More widely, his popularity among female voters was abysmal.

But as the two leaders hit the campaign trail last month, “Scotty from Marketing" has quickly taken top billing. In tightly controlled media set pieces, invariably dressed in RM Williams Boots and high-vis, Morrison has looked confident and at ease, trying his hand at sewing, welding and forklift driving as he repeated his line - or rather his one-word mantra - of the campaign.

"Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs," he has said, from Perth to Alice Springs.

GOTCHA DISASTER