Security at core of PM’S appeal

SCOTT Morrison wants Australians kept safe at home, in public and abroad but the latest polls suggest he has fewer than 100 days left to do so.

The Prime Minister yesterday announced $78 million in fresh funding for families escaping domestic abuse, as part of a speech about domestic and international security.

He told the National Press Club the Coalition was investing in record defence spending while tackling cyberbullying, the drug trade, people smuggling and online scammers.

“Our Government has demonstrated we have the mettle to make the right calls on our nation’s security,” he said ahead of Parliament returning today. “We have embraced tough calls rather than seeking to buy weak compromises for cheap political cover or opportunism.”

But the latest Newspoll shows the Coalition is headed for a solid defeat at the upcoming federal election in May, a timetable he reaffirmed.

“The election will be after the Budget (on April 2),” Mr Morrison said.

Labor remains ahead of the Coalition with an unchanged two-party preferred vote of 53-47 per cent, even though Mr Morrison’s approval rating has lifted. If that result is repeated at the election Bill Shorten’s team will win comfortably.

Mr Morrison’s speech came before the first parliamentary sitting week of 2019, in which the Coalition hopes to avoid losing a vote on asylum seeker medical transfers.

Mr Shorten is open to finding a “middle ground” with the Government on proposed changes to the way sick asylum seekers are transferred to Australia, which was to be discussed at a Labor caucus meeting last night.

But senior Liberal frontbencher Mathias Cormann ruled out a compromise.

“We are not at all interested

WE HAVE EMBRACED TOUGH CALLS RATHER THAN SEEKING TO BUY WEAK COMPROMISES FOR CHEAP POLITICAL COVER SCOTT MORRISON

in weakening the current border protection policies,” he said.

The Coalition is also under pressure to fix financial laws after the banking royal commission. Labor wants Parliament to sit for an extra two weeks in March to get the laws through before the election.

As the parliamentary year opens, the events of last year continue to haunt the Government with Cabinet minister Christopher Pyne suggesting the party bowed to irrational pressure in dumping Malcolm Turnbull.

“I felt that … sensible people had bowed to that irrational pressure,” he told The Age.