Thread by @PRGuy17

Happening now in Canberra.

Inside: Outside:

Inside, Scott Morrison glosses over his failures, plays down criticism and shrugs it off. The more he speaks the worse it gets outside as they listen over a PA. They yell 'the virus isn't real' and express anger and scorn when he mentions the vaccine. Idiots inside and outside.

Scott Morrison refers to RATs that don't exist as a measure of his personal success. Either he knows he's lying or he genuinely believes they exist. Either way, nobody can reliably access RATs but he doesn't want to recognise that. He now says we're leading the world.

This is the same Scott Morrison we get in the every other day pressers; carefully scripted by staff, plays down failures, heaps himself in praise, etc, then when the questions come and he goes off script it'll all go south quickly. It'd be strategic to not speak at all.

Outside a speaker tells the crowd to fart while Morrison is 'waffling on' and asks those wearing masks (can't see any) if they can smell the farts. He says if they can smell them, they'll catch Omicron because Omicron particles are smaller than farts — toilet bowl pseudo-science.

Scott Morrison speaking about drop in suicides, links this back to his performance. That's a very interesting stretch given his own MPs stood in Parliament and went on Sky News to tell us the exact opposite was happening (hello Josh, et al.). Those bs attacks lasted months.

He's now talking up the economy. Rubbish coming out of his mouth, says we're leading the world, yadda yadda — the economy isn't in great shape, he's just delivered our worst January since 1992. Morrison's debt is hurtling past $1 trillion. Waste and corruption is out of control.

Inside, those present appear engaged and enthralled by Morrison's flakey waffle offering.

Twitter responds somewhat unfavourably to the PM's #NPC appearance. Does anyone still like this man?

He's just talking in management speak now. Nothing of any interest or worth repeating here. Waste of an opportunity by Morrison here — he had an opportunity to engage with people here and he's blown it. Aussies don't want this waffle, they want to be spoken to, engaged.

The mood inside.

I feel their pain.

He wraps up, finally. Laura Tingle thanks him for his “very extensive” address. She asks: will he use this opportunity to acknowledge his failures (RATs, etc) and apologise to Aussies? He churlishly thanks her for the question. She says she's always happy to ask the questions.

He dodges the question altogether. Says his government hadn't anticipated future variants of covid, says Omicron turned things on its head. This is obviously rubbish as we all know, Omicron risks were very well known by the time it landed and Morrison had months of forewarnings.

“In the Aged Care sector we knew — well I should say, we learned...”

The Aged Care crisis continues to this day, the Morrison Government has not learned. Homes are swamped with covid, people can't get wounds cleaned, people are missing meals, people are dying.

He says he's very proud of his government's record on Aged Care. Incredible. Australia has never before seen the neglect, horror and carnage that's unfolding in Aged Care under his watch. Laura Tingle offers him one last chance to say sorry — he declines.

Chris Uhlmann throws the PM a lifeline, something about oil prices and uncertainty, allowing the PM to wander off into 'strong economic managers' territory — obvious problem with that: his gov't has the worst record for economic management, no government has ever performed worse.

Uh oh, Morrison asked about his track record on women and how he's made Parliament safer for women. He's going to have to dig deep to look authentic here. He says he “believes” Parliament is safer than it used to be because people spoke up and somehow that's to his credit?!

Morrison asked if he knows the price of a loaf of bread, a litre of petrol and a RAT. Morrison dodges that and says you can't pay for everything (his nothing should be free babble). Also asked about 100 Australians dying daily, businesses on their knees — dodges those too.

Morrison says he's not going to pretend he buys bread and milk (he was asked about bread, petrol and RATs) and he'll leave that to others. At least he's consistent, he's well-known for leaving things to others.

Morrison asked why he's the best person to lead the coalition to the election given his woeful polling, his status as a drag on the party and the red-hot rage Australians hold for him. He's rehearsed this answer. Basically saying 'Australians know' he's the right choice 🙃

Peter Van Onselen asks the PM about Gladys Berejiklian — he says she describes Morrison as “a horrible, horrible person, she does not trust him, and he's more concerned with politics than people” another quote from one of his ministers: “he's a psycho and he can't be trusted.”

Morrison declines the last question. Katherine Murphy asks given the ongoing Aged Care crisis and that Aged Care is absolutely a commonwealth responsibility, how can Morrison give the impression that he's learned from his mistakes given they're being repeated to this day?

He says every day his gov't is doing a good job and it's very difficult but he's fighting the good fight, yadda yadda. Over to Phil Coorey who asks if there'll be a Covid Royal Commission. Morrison says not now, there'll be a time for that (e.g. never, remember ICAC?).

Samantha Maiden asks about MP travel allowance, where MPs claim money to be in Canberra which they can use to pay off their mortgages, while Aussies are priced out of the property market. Morrison says he only owns one home, and entitlements aren't his business.

Asked on RAT failures, Morrison blames the TGA, what he doesn't mention is the TGA will not review items until they receive a signal to do so from the Health Minister (Greg Hunt). Greg Hunt asked them to review RATs a day after he was criticised over RAT delays.

Hunt knocked back offers from suppliers way back in October 2020, just months after he knocked back vaccines. Hunt's office said Australia would never need RATs because PCR would never be overwhelmed. Morrison blames Omicron, says it was a shock, just like Delta, Alpha, etc.

Here we go, Morrison is getting snippy now. He's not happy with the questions. He says no country got it right on RATs, reporter corrects him, Morrison then makes excuse that our gold standard stopped us ever anticipating that things could go wrong. What.

I missed the last few minutes, had to step out. Did I miss anything?

Meanwhile, the rabble of rabid anti-vaxxers outside, some of whom drove all the way from Perth, have achieved nothing again. Just the same tired old speeches about conspiracies peppered with crazed demands. No wonder the movement is shrinking.