Australia's May 21 election: how will China feature and what are key campaign issues for Scott Morrison?

What pollsters and political watchers have to say about how the government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison will fare in the upcoming national election reads somewhat like a tabloid scandal.

Morrison has called for the election on May 21 against a backdrop of missteps and controversies that pundits believe will affect his chances. Yet, in the May 2019 election, Morrison lagged behind in opinion polls before pulling off a win.

He is the first Australian leader to face two consecutive elections in almost 15 years, after a decade of political chaos in the country where prime ministers were regularly replaced by their own party over internal leadership spills.

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On May 21, all 151 lower house or House of Representatives seats will be up for grabs. The party or coalition holding a majority in the lower house will choose the new PM and form the new government.

Voting is compulsory for about 17 million Australians, who must register when they turn 18. Those who do not vote face a fine of A$20 (US$15).

We take a look at the issues that have dogged the government and how they might emerge during the campaign.

How is Morrison framing this vote?

At a press conference on Sunday, Morrison played up economic uncertainties and security threats, saying this was not the time to hand the reins to someone untested, like opposition Labor leader, Anthony Albanese.

He highlighted the country's strong economic growth and national defence and is expected to continue reminding voters of his government's series of spending measures to help soften the impact of inflation.

He will try to characterise the Labor party as "a risk" to Australia's economy and security, said Anne Tiernan, one of Australia's leading political scientists and an adjunct professor of politics in the Griffith Business School.

"Ordinary voters are looking at an economy that seems to be pretty bulletproof ... Morrison's got that on his side," political analyst and professor at ANU's Australian Studies Institute Mark Kenny said.

But why have voters grown to distrust him?

Integrity is indeed a sore point for Morrison, said Kenny. There have been leaked text messages from his own party calling him a "horrible horrible person" and his own deputy, Barnaby Joyce, calling him a hypocrite and a liar.

Morrison's relationship with the premiers of Australian states and territories has not been sterling during the pandemic.

Few expat Australians would forget how borders were shut for about 21 months, leaving them stranded abroad and the country earning the moniker "Fortress Australia". Several lodged a United Nations petition against the government for the "right to return home".

Those within the country who needed to leave also faced immense challenges to do so and then return.

Morrison was also criticised for delaying the roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines and the shortage of rapid antigen tests during a recent Omicron outbreak. There was also unhappiness over his refusal to make rapid test kits available for free.

Neither did his handling of the Black Summer bush fires in the state of New South Wales (NSW), that ran for over six months from 2019 to early 2020, inspire confidence.

Ex-NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian said in private text messages that Morrison was "actively spreading lies and briefing against me re fires".

After Australia backed out of a submarine deal with France last year in favour of joining up with the US and Britain in the Aukus security pact, French president Emmanuel Macron accused Morrison of lying.

Recently, two female Liberal Party members came out to attack Morrison's character. Outgoing Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells described Morrison as "an autocrat" during a speech in parliament and called him "a bully with no moral compass" who was pretending to be a man of faith, while MP Catherine Cusack last week accused Morrison of bullying and said she would not vote for him or the party at the federal election.

Morrison, a Christian, has distanced himself from his friend Brian Houston, the founder of the global Hillsong Church after allegations of the latter's inappropriate behaviour towards women surfaced. His decades-long friendship with Tim Stewart, a high-profile supporter of the far-right conspiracy cult QAnon has also raised eyebrows.

Tiernan said these matters bolstered growing voter perception that Morrison and his government were focused on short-term politics.

"Some of this started with the PM being in Hawaii on holidays during the Black Summer bush fires. His infamous 'I don't hold a hosepipe, mate' [remark] became emblematic of his failure to accept responsibility and tendency to blame others," she said.

Additionally, the government has failed to deliver a Federal Integrity Commission, or adequate action on climate change, Tiernan said.

This past week, the Prime Minister did a backflip over a relief package. He had at first agreed to go halves with the Queensland government on a US$741 million package to help Queenslanders rebuild their homes but later changed his mind saying Queensland was crying poor.

He later relented after drawing the ire of the Queensland public.

With both parties likely to try and target the swing votes of the undecided public, already such issues around bush fires and floods had galvanised support for "independents in key marginal seats", Tiernan said.

The extreme weather events faced by Australians in recent years have been unnerving; however, Morrison has maintained there is no evidence that links the country's carbon emissions to bush fires. He faced criticism for his slow actions on climate change during the COP26 meeting last year.

Why will he struggle to win over women voters?

Women make up about half of voters and many have expressed disgust at Morrison's handling of rape allegations involving Australian federal politicians and government employees.

In February and March last year, government staffer Brittany Higgins alleged she was raped by a colleague in Parliament House in 2019. The alleged rapist was sacked but little was done to support Higgins and punish the perpetrator sparking an outcry of a "boys club" culture, systemic misogyny and victim blaming in the Morrison government.

A decision on whether the court trial currently set for June would go ahead will be laid down in coming weeks. Around the same time, then Australian Attorney General Christian Porter denied he raped a 16-year-old girl in 1988. Porter resigned from the front bench of the Morrison government last September.

This week, more sex scandal allegations emerged. Independent journalist Friendly Jordies revealed several federal politicians were involved in procuring prostitutes for sex in the prayer room of Parliament House. The Morrison government has not responded to the claims.

How does China - and race - feature in this election?

Amid tense Canberra-Beijing relations, China has been portrayed as a threat to Australia, with growing allegations of foreign interference and even spying by Chinese-Australians, who also faced discrimination during the pandemic.

Last October, the furore over "loyalties" of Chinese-Australians reached a crescendo after Liberal Senator Eric Abetz launched a McCarthyist-styled attack on three prominent Chinese-Australians demanding they condemn the Chinese Communist Party at a parliament inquiry.

Several parliamentarians also started stoking voter fears over the possibility of war with China. When asked if concerns over China disrupting Australia national security would win points for Morrison, Kenny was not so sure.

He said while Morrison's increased defence spending in the name of national security would hold him in good stead with some people - mainly male voters - it was not certain whether more voters would buy it.

It was also unclear if voters were persuaded by the idea that the Morrison government was tough on China whereas the opposition Labor party was not, election analyst and publisher of the Australian politics website pollbludger.net William Bowe said.

"Polls have shown Liberal and Labor to be rated about evenly on handling the relationship with China. Furthermore, foreign policy has not traditionally been an important factor in swaying voters at Australian elections," Bowe said.

Veteran Labor Party pollster John Utting said Morrison was throwing the kitchen sink at staying in power with the focus on defence and security. "Take away all the super heated rhetoric, there is no real Chinese threat to Australia at all if you look at it objectively," he said.

Tiernan agreed Morrison's labelling of Albanese as pro-China had fallen flat, particularly after security and intelligence chiefs criticised the government for politicising the issue.

Last week, prominent Chinese-Australians held an online discussion with members of various Asian communities in Australia where they spoke about the impact of the "mainstream narrative" against them and "institutionalised racism". Prominent Asian-Australians have faced defamatory accusations over their links with Beijing.

Reports have also surfaced that Morrison embarked on racial vilification campaign against a Lebanese-Australian rival Michael Towke in 2007, telling voters it would be risky to vote him in because he was a "Moslem".

What will win it for Morrison?

Tiernan said while the trends look bad for the government, " no one should underestimate Scott Morrison's capacity as a campaigner".

Bowe also said "the economic fundamentals do not point to a change of government".

"It may be that Morrison is able to recover support during the campaign as voters focus more on the economy and less on the scandals and disunity that have beset the government," he said.

Additional reporting by Reuters

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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