Scott Morrison has been blindsided by a claim that leaked texts between a party colleague and the former New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian included her calling the prime minister a “horrible person” who was untrustworthy.
Morrison on Tuesday was confronted at the National Press Club by the Network Ten political editor, Peter van Onselen, who claimed he had been leaked text messages between “a current Liberal cabinet minister” and Berejiklian.
“In one, she described you as a horrible, horrible person, going on to say she did not trust you, and you are more concerned with politics than people,” Van Onselen said.
“The minister is even more scathing, describing you as a fraud and ‘a complete psycho’. Does this exchange surprise you? And what does it tell us?”
Van Onselen did not specify whether it was a state or federal minister.
In response, Morrison said: “Well, I don’t know who you’re referring to, or the basis of what you’ve put to me. But I obviously don’t agree with it. And I don’t think that that is my record.”
In a later news report on Tuesday night, Van Onselen claimed that in another text, sent during the 2019-20 bushfires, Berejiklian said: “Lives are at stake today and he [Morrison] is just obsessed with petty political point-scoring.”
In a statement, Berejiklian said she had “no recollection of such messages”.
“I understand there has been some commentary today concerning myself and the PM,” she said.
“I have no recollection of such messages. Let me reiterate my very strong support for prime minister Morrison and all he is doing for our nation during these very challenging times. I also strongly believe he is the best person to lead our nation for years to come.”
Late last year, Morrison urged Berejiklian to contest the federal seat of Warringah for the Liberal party, describing her as “a dear friend over a long period of time”. Berejiklian, who ultimately ruled out running, said she had considered the tilt because of her “respect” for Morrison and the Liberal party.
In Tuesday’s pre-election scene-setting address to the press club, Morrison sought to draw a line under a turbulent summer for the Coalition by conceding the government’s response to the pandemic was “not perfect” while seeking to switch the focus to the economic recovery ahead.
But Morrison’s announcements of $800 in bonus payments to aged care workers and a new $2.2bn manufacturing strategy were overshadowed by a series of questions to the prime minister about his poor personal standing and the failure of the government to properly prepare for the Omicron outbreak.
The prime minister was also asked whether he knew the cost of a “loaf of bread, a litre of petrol and a rapid antigen test” in a question suggesting he may have lost touch with ordinary Australians.
“I am not going to pretend to you that I go out each day and I buy a loaf of bread and I buy a litre of milk,” Morrison replied. “I’m not going to pretend to you that I do that.”
The prime minister, who is lagging in the polls and faces an uphill battle to secure the government’s re-election after three consecutive terms in office, said he did not believe the election would be about the Coalition’s performance.
“It’s not a referendum on the government, this is a choice about who is going to lead the government after the election and there are two choices, and they will be able to see the differences between those two choices and to weigh up the consequences of those two choices – and they will carefully consider it,” he said.
“Australians, you know, in between elections, they tend not to focus that much on politics because they are focused on what matters most to them, not the political goings-on in this place.
“But the time for the election will come, and when it does they will weigh these things up, and quietly get about their business.”
After using his opening address to “acknowledge” the frustrations felt by Australians during the pandemic, Morrison said he had reflected on what more the government could have done.
“That leads you to ask: ‘Couldn’t you have done more? Couldn’t this have been avoided? After all, aren’t you responsible?’ I get that. For me, as prime minister, accepting this responsibility means asking yourself and challenging yourself every single day with those same questions.
“But what I say to Australians on every occasion where something hasn’t gone exactly as we’d hoped or we’ve got it exactly right or the way we would have liked it to have turned out, we’ve crushed together, worked the program, solved it, and moved forward.
“And that’s what Australians expect of us. I don’t think they expect perfection. But they do expect you to keep working it every single day. And that’s something I’m very proud my government has done.”
Asked by the ABC’s Laura Tingle if he would like to apologise for perceived mistakes made as prime minister, including going to Hawaii during the 2019-20 bushfires, not securing enough rapid antigen tests, and shortcomings in the national disability insurance scheme, Morrison demurred.
“We’re all terribly sorry for what this pandemic has done to the world and to this country,” he said.
“These are the times in which we live. And I’ve set out today, I think, very clearly, the challenges that we’ve faced. But I’m also very proud of Australians and what they’ve achieved in enabling us all to come through this despite the setbacks and the challenges that we have faced.”
Morrison said if he had his time over he would have better managed expectations about the risks of opening up over summer – saying the government had been “too optimistic”.
“In raising those expectations about the summer, we heightened the great sense of disappointment that people felt.”
The prime minister also said that he would have handed responsibility for the vaccine rollout to the military earlier last year. “I wish we had done that earlier – and that is a lesson.”
