Can-do can’t do — and neither can any of Morrison’s other attack lines at the moment

Can-do capitalism, we barely knew ye.

Last week, addressing the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Scott Morrison unveiled his new mantra, repeating “can-do capitalism” in his speech and the following Q&A. “Can-do capitalism” would fix climate change, but it was “a good motto for us to follow not just in this area, but right across the spectrum of economic policy in this country”.

So good a motto that Morrison has not uttered it once since that day.

Some bright young spark in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) came up with the line as a great summation of Scott Morrison’s election campaign theme that he was for freedom and Labor was for compulsion. But because political staffers, like many of the journalists they spoon-feed, don’t have memories longer than five minutes, it sailed all the way through into the prime minister’s speech and splashed across the Liberals’ News Corp newsletters without anyone recalling the fate of Can-Do Campbell Newman in Queensland.

Labor happily didn’t let the phrase pass unremarked up north.

The penny evidently dropped in the PMO later that day, and the phrase was immediately terminated with extreme prejudice. Perhaps like the staffer who proposed it.

A similar treatment awaited the government’s electric vehicle policy, the announcement of which went down so well the PMO didn’t bother posting the transcript of the ensuing press conference, which was dominated by the issue of Morrison’s lies. Any mention of electric vehicles by Morrison now simply reminds everyone that he’s a compulsive liar. By the end of last week, electric vehicles had been dropped and he was lashing out at Anthony Albanese for “backing in China” to the visible confusion of interviewers.

This week saw a different tack on economic policy, with Morrison returning to the John Howard idea of labelling Labor the party of higher interest rates and higher petrol prices, without any explanation of exactly how Labor would push interest rates higher given that the gravamen of Howard’s charge was that Labor’s spending would be undisciplined and thus force the Reserve Bank to increase rates. As it turned out that neatly summarised the last term of Howard himself.

It’s a hard charge to maintain when Morrison has a $100 billion deficit and plans to run the biggest government since World War II well into the 2020s.

Josh Frydenberg overnight used the government’s prime stenographer to signal he was committing to a Menziean era of full employment. That will drive up wages growth, of course, and therefore create the inflation conditions for the Reserve Bank to… raise interest rates. Confusingly, Morrison is thus warning that Labor will cause exactly what his own treasurer says is the government’s policy.

One can only hope Frydenberg doesn’t inflict the 5.5% interest rates that were normal under Menzies on us now, given the implications for heavily indebted households. Or did Frydenberg’s office not check what interest rates were in the 1950s before exhuming the sainted Sir Robert?

The chances of full employment are virtually zero given the government’s determination to return to pre-pandemic migration patterns — hundreds of thousands of temporary workers forcing wages down across a variety of industries, with Coalition donors spared the problem of either paying higher wages to Australians or going without staff (and endlessly whining to the Financial Review about it).

Migration is a sleeper issue for the election, and Morrison faces a pincer movement on it, from the far right from Pauline Hanson and from Labor on temporary migration and wages growth. This week’s Wage Price Index numbers, showing households enduring further real wage cuts, illustrate the risk to household incomes from rapidly expanding the labour supply.

Labor, meanwhile, continues to keep a low profile, to the chagrin of supporters. It did roll out one high-profile policy this week, however, on completely safe ground: the NBN.

Until the submarine debacle came along, the NBN was the government’s most expensive policy failure — spending significantly more than Labor’s original fibre plan to deliver a sub-standard soup of different technologies so poor that people on the east coast are turning to Elon Musk’s colossal act of sky vandalism, Starlink, for better service. Worse still, on NBN the government has one of its worst performers, the lethargic Paul Fletcher, “prosecuting” its case that it hasn’t been what the electorate is convinced it is — a colossal stuff-up.

Morrison can only hope botching the NBN has been priced into his vote by the electorate already.

What’s next week’s line for Morrison? He fired the gun on this early election campaign last week and he’s already chewed through multiple attack lines that have mainly served to remind people of negative characteristics of the Coalition or himself, and confused us as to exactly what the government’s economic policy is.

The press gallery are reluctant to say it because they wrote Morrison off before the 2019 election, only to be surprised by his “miracle” win — but if he’s the political genius they believe him to be, the evidence is a long time coming at the moment.

Still, a long way ’til polling day. A long, long, long way.