The purpose of this ’60 Minutes’ puff piece was to humanise Morrison through the use of his wife, Jenny.

“Having a tough month? Are women activists tearing shreds off you at the National Press Club while your planned wedge of Labor over “religious discrimination” fails and your Cabinet springs more leaks than the Titanic?”

“Needing a reset to stave off electoral annihilation in May, a rewind to the halcyon days of 2019 when you passed yourself off as the ‘everyman PM from the Shire’ and voters actually bought into it? The solution is simple: call 1-800-COSTELLO … and don’t forget to bring Jen!”

A reset which turns the tide for a seemingly doomed Scott Morrison was at least the hoped-for objective of last night’s 60 Minutes appearance on a TV station whose parent company is chaired by none other than former Liberal Treasurer Peter Costello.

The “60 Minutes” segment was intended as a circuit breaker for the waves of negative publicity threatening to bury Morrison in an electoral landslide, much like a last ditch frontal attack across Belgium (the “Battle of the Bulge”) was supposed to turn it all around for Germany in World War II (pardon the military metaphor, but it’s poignant, as I’ll explain later).

And so, much like his cringe-inducing hot lap around Bathurst and his embarrassing attempt to play hairdresser in Mt Eliza, up popped the PM on Sunday night, strumming a ukulele.

As you can see from the clip above, he’s not that good on the uke, and his recollection of lyrics from Dragon’s “April Sun in Cuba” is confined to one line, repeated over and over like one of his catch lines at a presser. “Shake and bake”, “how good is Ash Barty?”, “take me to the April sun”; it’s not like we didn’t know he’s repetitious.
None of the PM’s minders seemed to twig that the instrument Morrison strummed is synonymous with Hawaii, which he visited (in a public relations disaster) during the bushfire crisis of 2019. Someone deserves a rap over the knuckles for that one.

Not unlike the proverbial human shield, wife Jenny was wheeled out to manage the couple’s response to some of the more contentious issues her husband faced. On Hawaii and the bushfires, she said: “It was wrong; I’m sorry”.

The PM sat next to her silently. No apology escaped his lips.

As curry (of course) and margaritas were prepared, Channel 9’s Karl Stefanovic indulged in a bit of banter: “Watch the knives!” he joked. “Only from behind!” came the PM’s punchline.

The “Today Show” host went on to describe Jenny as “refreshingly honest”, a “secret weapon” in Morrison’s fight for re-election, but her response to many questions seemed rehearsed, and workshopped by the PM’s communications team.

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On former Australian of the Year Grace Tame’s unsmiling demeanour during a recent function at the Lodge, she opined: “I respect people that want to change things … but I still think there’s manners and respect.”

“Sometimes the loudest people take up the most space”, Jenny added in a clear nod to Morrison’s “Quiet Australians”.

Journalist and commentator Peter van Onselen – eviscerated by women in recent weeks for many of these sentiments – couldn’t have summed it up better, but Jenny’s a woman, and that gives her cover.

Van Onselen’s exclusive on leaked texts to and from a senior Cabinet Minister, in which the PM was described as a “complete psycho”, a “fraud” and a “horrible, horrible man”, was next on Stefanovic’s agenda, to which Jenny replied: “I felt sick to my stomach”.

“It was such a poor question (from van Onselen) with such bad intent. I have grown daughters who are going to high school. They know their dad better than anyone else”, Jenny added.
Ah, the daughters: how many human shields can one man have? The journalists and political opponents Morrison attacks have children too; no word as to how Jenny feels about them.

No questions from Stefanovic about Robodebt, JobKeeper waste, a federal ICAC, our ill-treated refugees, climate change, Cabinet leaks or many of the other issues swamping Morrison at present. The “60 Minutes” segment was only half an hour in length; a full accounting of Morrison’s mis-steps would have taken us into the wee hours of Monday morning.

But that wasn’t the purpose of this puff piece. The objective was to humanise Morrison, deflect some of the more devastating barbs sent his way through the use of Jenny (a more-than-capable human shield, it turns out) and reset, with a view to a last-ditch offensive in coming weeks (with the political equivalent of tanks and artillery, plus massive air support, courtesy of the usual suspects in the mainstream media).

Incidentally, do you remember how the abovementioned “Battle of the Bulge” worked out? Spoiler alert: Germany surrendered three months later … which just happens to be how long we’ll likely have to wait for the election.

One line from “April Sun in Cuba”, sung out-of-tune on a seemingly-endless loop. Luckily for them, the voters have stopped listening.