Election called, with focus on China, climate, COVID

CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s prime minister has called for a May 21 election that will be fought on issues including Chinese economic coercion, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Sunday advised Governor-General David Hurley as representative of Australia’s head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, to set the election date. Morrison’s conservative coalition is seeking a fourth three-year term. The date is the latest available to him.

He urged voters to stick with a government that delivered one of the lowest pandemic death tolls of any advanced economy rather than risk the rule of the opposition Labor Party.

“This election is a choice between a government that you know and that has been delivering and a Labor opposition that you don’t,” Morrison said.

Morrison led his government to a narrow victory at the last election in 2019 despite opinion polls consistently placing the center-left opposition Australian Labor Party ahead.

The Liberal Party-led coalition is again behind in most opinion polls, but many analysts predict a tight result.

The last election occurred in the hottest and driest year Australia had ever experienced. The year ended with deadly and devastating wildfires across Australia’s southeast that destroyed more than 3,000 homes and razed 47 million acres of farmland and forests during the Southern Hemisphere summer.

Morrison was widely criticized for taking a secret family vacation to Hawaii at the height of the crisis while his hometown Sydney was blanketed in toxic smoke. He cut his vacation short due to the public backlash, but was further criticized over his explanation for his absence: “I don’t hold a hose.”

Morrison was widely criticized at the U.N. climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in November for failing to set more ambitious targets for the end of the decade. The government aims to reduce emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels, while other countries have made steeper commitments. The Australian Labor Party has promised to reduce emissions by 43% by 2030.

With China imposing official and unofficial trade sanctions against Australia in recent years, the government argues that Beijing wants Labor to win the election because the party was less likely to stand up to economic coercion.