The Echidna: Morrison needs to pull off the political escape of the century

NOT everything went to plan for Harry Houdini when he toured Australia in 1910. Severe seasickness during the voyage from Europe left him weakened and 10 kilograms lighter, a tiger snake almost bit him as he attempted to become the first man to fly a plane on our soil and, after plummeting into a murky river locked in chains, he emerged successfully only to find himself treading water next to a floating corpse.

Not everything has gone to plan for that well known political escape artist Scott Morrison, either. Lauded for his unexpected "I have always believed in miracles" victory in 2019, the Prime Minister has trailed in the polls, failed to land a knockout punch on an opponent he believed was brittle and, by claiming his days as a bulldozer would soon end, achieved something even Houdini never attempted by tying himself up in knots without any assistance.

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But all escape artists have one last trick left in the bag, and Morrison delivered it during the Liberal's official campaign launch in Brisbane. Under a re-elected Coalition government, first home buyers would be allowed to use up to 40 per cent of their superannuation - limited to $50,000 - to purchase a home. Older Australians wanting to downsize would also be able to reinvest $300,000 from the sale of their property into their retirement fund.

Allowing young buyers to dip into their retirement savings - once described as "the craziest idea I've heard" by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and a swathe of other senior Liberals when it was floated in the past - is pitched directly at middle Australia amid the growing crisis around housing affordability and rental availability. Morrison is contrasting it with Labor's $329 million Help to Buy scheme, which involves the government taking an equity stake of up to 40 per cent on the price of a new home. "There is no limit on who can use it," Morrison said, before telling the crowd "I am just warming up." The Coalition's Super Home Buyer Scheme meant "when you do an improvement you don't have to check with the government every time you go to Bunnings to buy a can of paint."

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The proposal was immediately attacked by Labor and the Financial Services Council, which claimed the superannuation system could be undermined by forcing "5.3 million young Australians to decide between owning a home or their retirement savings." But it was also, unsurprisingly, supported by the Housing Industry Association, and will appeal to many of those young Australians who are decades away from accessing their super and unable to gain the same foothold in the property market as their parents.

Right now Morrison is in the sort of pickle Harry Houdini found himself in during the closing stages of his Australian tour, when three optimistic attendants from a local asylum rolled him "in a number of large sheets in mummy fashion", fastened him to an iron hospital bed and poured 15 buckets of water "over his form so as to cause all the materials and knots to shrink". It took Houdini a painful 35 minutes to escape - an eternity by his standards.

Scott Morrison has three days to pull off the greatest political escape of the century. He's betting the house on it.

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