Australia’s Scott Morrison faces low approval ratings, allegations of ‘racial vilification’ days before election call
- Members of Morrison’s party said he told them in 2007 that his competitor in a local election was too risky to back as a candidate ‘due to his ethnic background’
- Budget sweeteners have failed to boost the government’s opinion polls. An election must be held on or by May 21
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Cash sweeteners and cheaper petrol have failed to substantially boost the Australian government’s opinion polls ahead of an election that Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to call within days. He must hold an election on or before May 21 under Australian law.
Two new surveys published by Newspoll and Ipsos late Sunday show the government is still trailing the opposition Labor Party, despite a high-profile pre-election budget delivered by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on March 29, which included payments for low-income earners and a cut to the petrol tax.
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According to Newspoll, Morrison’s centre-right Liberal National coalition has improved by just 1 percentage point in the past three weeks, trailing the Labor Party 54 per cent to 46 per cent. The Ipsos survey found the government was in an even worse position.
The poor polling comes despite positive economic news in the 2022 Australia budget including falling unemployment, a rapid drop in government debt thanks to high commodity prices and a prediction that wages will rise above inflation as early as next year.
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Morrison was widely written off before the 2019 election only to win a surprise victory. The government is hoping for another “miracle” win, but Morrison is facing internal division inside his own party even before the race has begun. In a speech to Parliament last week, a government senator called him an “autocrat” and a “bully,” adding he was “unfit” to be prime minister.
On Sunday, Morrison hit back against claims he launched his political career by vilifying a rival over his Lebanese heritage and stoking rumours he was Muslim.
Two members of Morrison’s party signed legal declarations stating he told them back in 2007 that his competitor in a local election, Michael Towke, was too risky for the Liberals to back as their candidate.
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This was due to his ethnic background, the pair claimed, and “a strong rumour” the Lebanese Christian was actually Muslim, according to reports in The Saturday Paper.
“I could not reject this more fundamentally,” Morrison told reporters Sunday, adding that close to an election people “make all sorts of things up, because they have other motivations”.
The allegations date from early in his political career, when he was battling to become a candidate for the Sydney seat of Cook, where in 2005 white and Lebanese Australians brawled on a beach during the racially-charged Cronulla riots.
Towke told Nine newspapers on Sunday that among tactics used to unseat him from Cook in 2007, “racial vilification was front and centre and (Morrison) was directly involved”.
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The 15-year-old claims surfaced after Morrison’s Liberal Party colleague Concetta Fierravanti-Wells alluded to them on Tuesday during an extraordinary attack on the prime minister in parliament.
“In my public life, I have met ruthless people. Morrison tops the list,” she said, adding that he “is not fit to be prime minister”.
The lashing by a member of his own party piled further pressure on Morrison, who must close a 10-point gap between his conservative government and the Labour opposition to hold on to power in the election.
