Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for a federal election on May 21 on Sunday (April 10), launching a battle to stay in power after three years of floods, fires and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Morrison's Conservative government is trying to attract 17 million Australian voters behind the opposition Labor Party in a series of opinion polls, despite running a thriving economy with a 13-year low unemployment rate of 4 percent.

"These elections are about you. Nothing else. It's about our country and their future," Morrison said. "I know Australians are going through a difficult period. I also know that Australia will continue to face difficult challenges in the years to come," he told a news conference. in Canberra.

Surveys have shown that most voters do not trust the 53-year-old leader who shaped him as a typical Australian family man and was not afraid to proclaim his Pentecostal Christian faith.

In a condemnation of the vote, politicians, including two non-attached members of his own Liberal Party, accused him of being an oppressor and an autocrat who said "there is no moral compass."

The goal of ending the Liberal National Party's nine-year rule is the 59-year-old Labor opposition leader Anthony Albanese, a cautious campaign focused on Morrison's success in the face of the crisis. This tactic seems to work.

A recent Newspoll poll found that Labor leaders lead a coalition with a 54 percent to 46 percent ratio on a bipartite basis.

Morrison and Albanese are statistically linked as prime minister - elected for the next three-year term.

Numerous studies have shown that the cost of living, with fuel prices rising sharply since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is a major pre-election issue.

In the election campaign, the government announced several donations, including fuel tax cuts and tax cuts for almost half of the adult population. But the severe weather events that blame the overheating planet and the government's response have also frightened many Australians.


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Morrison is a staunch supporter of the broad Australian fossil fuel industry.

He promised to mine and export coal as long as there were buyers, called for a "gas recovery" after the pandemic, and suppressed global calls for faster carbon reductions by 2030.

As treasurer in 2017, he brought a piece of coal to parliament and said to Labor, "This is coal, don't worry."

Morrison is also broad in its climate disaster management in Australia.

During the summer fires of 2019-2020, which killed more than 30 people, Morrison took his family on a Christmas vacation to Hawaii. After his brief pause, we recall that Morrison told reporters that he was sure people understood, "I had no snake, no companion, and I did not sit in the control room."

"Morrison's position is almost impossible due to a vacation in Hawaii," said Mark Kenny, a professor at the Australian National University in Canberra.

But the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic "changed everything," he said, making people think of a new global crisis.

Morrison was right to inject "a huge amount of money" into the economy, but the launch of the vaccine was extremely slow and "disrupted" the distribution of rapid antigen tests, Kenny said.

The recent deadly two-week flood on the East Coast in late February and early March angered residents over a perceived lack of willingness and help.

Morrison also sought women's voters after dealing with rape charges by a government politician because young voters were rejected by his pro-coal barganan. With the support of the Fund for Climate Change Activists, more than a dozen women were supported as independent central candidates - many in traditional conservative venues in the city.

But a few people ruled out Morrison's victory.

"Things can happen that change dynamically with speed," said Michele Levine, CEO of Roy Morgan pollsters.

Morrison faced difficulties in the past when he won what he described as a "miracle" election in May 2019, despite withdrawing a majority.