A question on the price of bread and milk has stumped the Prime Minister, with Scott Morrison conceding he doesn’t know how much it would cost the everyday Australian.
Mr Morrison was addressing the National Press Club in Canberra when he was asked if he has “lost touch” with voters on the cost of living.
“Have you lost touch with ordinary Australians? And on that theme off the top of your head, can you tell me the price of a loaf of bread, a litre of petrol and a rapid antigen test?” a reporter asked.
“I'm 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. I'm not going to pretend to you that I do that. I’ll leave those sort of things to you, mate,” Mr Morrison replied.
“I do my job every day to ensure that those things are affordable as they possibly can be for Australians every single day.
“It's going to be tough in the months or years ahead. There is going to be strong economic challenges. You have to make decisions in real time and ensure that you have the capacity to deal with the challenges that are yet to come. And that’s what people will get from me.”
Former prime minister John Howard, who Mr Morrison considers a mentor, used to be asked the same question.
Mr Howard would carry with him a piece of paper that outlined the running costs of bread, milk and other household staples.
At the moment, a loaf of bread costs about $4, a litre of non-premium fuel costs about $1.80, and a rapid antigen test costs about $17.
The big admission came as the Prime Minister sought to use his press club address to reset ahead of the next election.
During his speech, he acknowledge he hasn’t got everything right in the pandemic but stopped short of apologising to voters.
Conceding voters are frustrated after a horror summer marked by the Omicron wave, rising deaths and shortage of rapid antigen tests, Mr Morrison said he expects to cop the blame for how things were handled.
“I understand and I acknowledge the frustration, especially with how this global pandemic has played out over this past very difficult summer … You've had to put up with a lot,” he said.
He acknowledged worse outcomes experienced overseas did not soften the blow of what Australians had endured over January.
“The fact that far worse outcomes have been experienced overseas – which we know – well, that gives some important perspective. But it doesn’t soften the blow.”
“It’s fair enough that this disappointment 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 responsibilixjmtzywty means asking yourself and challenging yourself every single day with those same questions.
“And I can assure you I do. I haven't got everything right. And I’ll take my fair share of the criticism and the blame. It goes with the job.”
Asked if he wanted to clear the air and say sorry, Mr Morrison declined.
“Do you want to take this opportunity to actually say sorry for the mistakes you've made as prime minister?” ABC host Laura Tingle asked.
“We’re all terribly sorry for what this pandemic has done to the world and to this country,” Mr Morrison replied.
But he did concede he may have been “too optimistic” about the reopening the nation over summer, and that he wished he had brought in Lieutenant General John Frewen to run the vaccine roll out much earlier.
“I think we were too optimistic, perhaps. And we could have communicated more clearly about the risks and challenges that
we still faced,” Mr Morrison said.
“If I had my time over, I would have put it under a military operation from the outset and not later in the year … I took the decision to send in General Frewen and change the way we did it, and set up a change in the command structure, how logistics were managed, how it was
planned.
“And it worked. But I wish we'd done that earlier. And that’s a lesson.”
The Prime Minister’s address comes as he is fighting for his political life, after the latest Newspoll revealed he would face an electoral wipe-out if an election were to be held today.
