The latest opinions polls show Scott Morrison is still on the nose and might have reached the point of no return. It’s currently 46% to the LNP and 54% to Labor in the two-party preferred voting and while it’s always possible for governments to make up ground, it is a difficult task. Morrison is looking panicked and a panicked prime minister will always start rolling the dice more erratically, or look to filthy lucre to see if the election victory from May 2019 can be repeated.

Lighting rarely strikes twice in the same location but that’s exactly what Morrison will be looking for. His opponent, Anthony Albanese, has a different set of issues. When he first became leader, in response to criticism that he wasn’t ‘taking it up to the government’, he suggested that in politics, you have to wait until the fourth quarter and then start kicking with the wind.

We assume he’s talking AFL but in the football parlance, Labor has been ahead at three-quarter time by 10 goals in recent elections – and kicking with the wind – but has gone on to lose those elections. Albanese did suggest there’s a possibility of an election in December, so surely this must be the fourth quarter and the wind has started to blow.

But where’s Albanese? Still in the changerooms, keeping his powder dry. It will be a pity if the final siren blows and Albanese remains in the changeroom still rehearsing his lines and warm-ups, because there’s the possibility Morrison may have completed his victory lap by then.

And there’s a Coalition agreement for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050? Well, the media seems to think so, even though there is no change to policy, there is no detail, and there is no modelling. A sensible mainstream media would have picked up these anomalies, and quickly outlined the accommodation of the National Party into net-zero, is actually a net-zero scam, and all based around trying to win the next election.

All Morrison had to do was wave a slick glossy brochure at the media, and they all seemed to agree that it’s all over: climate change is no longer a political problem for the federal government. Morrison decreed that he is the man of action on climate change, the ‘man with the plan’, and the media believed him.

Will the electorate fall for it so easily? We don’t think so.