‘Sorry I’ve been a bulldozer’: PM vows late campaign pivot
IN a final-week pitch to win over undecided voters, Scott Morrison has vowed Australians will see a new side of him compared to the “bulldozer” he has been during the pandemic.
The Prime Minister claimed Australia had needed “strength and resilience” to get through the past few years, but acknowledged his approach would change now the country was “moving into a different time”.
“I admit that hasn’t enabled Australians to see a lot of other gears in the way I work,” he said.
“As we go into this next period, on the other side of this election, I know there are things that are going to have to change.”
Several Liberal sources said Mr Morrison’s shift was “welcome”, with one MP saying that Mr Morrison should have said as much “months ago”. Another senior Liberal source said the pivot, which some have described as Mr Morrison’s “real Julia” moment – when former prime minister Julia Gillard asked voters to give her a chance to be herself – was still a “gamble” for the Coalition.
“It depends if people see it as a sign of humility … or think it’s desperation,” the source said.
The Liberal source said voters needed to have “positive reasons” to vote for the government to “overcome the fact that some are disgruntled with Scott in different ways”. “At the outset of the campaign we laid our plan … and it’s the right thing from him to reinforce again now we know it’s been a tough few years and haven’t been able to get everything right … to tip the undecided voters our way,” the Coalition source said.
It is understood the Prime Minister’s campaign team is looking to point towards Australia’s
post-Covid “opportunities” and the future as the country moves on from the initial emergency phase of the pandemic.
Mr Morrison was on Friday asked about his leadership and whether he had been telling Australians what they should do rather than listening to them.
He said that Australians had seen him work in different ways in recent years.
“I can be a bit of a bulldozer when it comes to issues,” he said.