Scott Morrison and Dominic Perrottet (Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)

Is Dominic Perrottet good or bad for Scott Morrison? Truth is, no one knows, despite the insider guff from press gallery drones about their mutual respect blah blah.

Perrottet is a strong contrast to Gladys Berejiklian, yet another white, socially reactionary male with a strong, almost cultish, religious background — just like Morrison. Something of a fail on the product differentiation score; the Liberal Party is a broad church — with the emphasis on church.

Perrottet also presided over a much bigger scandal than Berejiklian in terms of money and lives affected. The icare debacle saw billions of dollars lost and thousands of workers underpaid amid serious conflicts of interest.

The history of the scandal doesn’t say much for Perrottet’s management skills.

Matt Kean’s elevation to state treasurer is also important. Kean has secured victory after victory on renewable energy by finding a convincing narrative about regional growth and selling it to the New South Wales Nationals. It helps that both NSW parties are less dependent on donations from fossil-fuel companies than their federal counterparts, true, but Kean has demonstrated that forgotten adage of policymaking in Australia: that good policy should be good politics and in the area that has rent the federal Coalition time and again. He could be the key to a successful and reforming new government.

But have a look at recent polling to see how important NSW is to Morrison. In a result that presumably confounded the many press gallery commentators who were lauding AUKUS as a masterstroke, the most recent Morgan poll last week had Labor increasing its two-party-preferred lead to eight points. No one pays attention to polls after the 2019 debacle, and fair enough, but it’s the state numbers that are more interesting.

Labor’s huge lead in Victoria has come off quite a bit in recent months but it would still enjoy a swing there of nearly 3% and pick up a seat. In Western Australia Labor is sitting on a swing of 10%, and can probably count on at least two seats, maybe three, including Christian Porter’s in Pearce. In South Australia Labor has a ridiculously large lead that would deliver Boothby and maybe even Sturt. Labor is looking at a swing against it in Tasmania, but not enough to endanger its seats. But no one really knows what might happen there anyway.

The point isn’t that these results will be what transpires at an election, but that Morrison can’t really look to increase his margin in any of those states — in fact the Liberals will be mounting defensive operations in them to try to save seats — and against popular Labor premiers in two states.

It’s a different story in Queensland. Morgan has Labor trailing five points on a two-party-preferred basis, but that’s nearly a 6% improvement on its disastrous 2019 result — which notionally brings several seats into play. But Labor has four seats there on less than 3%, even though the general view is that the Liberal National Party can’t top its 2019 result (Clive Palmer’s ad spending will also be relevant).

That’s why Morrison has ramped up his attacks on the Queensland government in recent days, accusing it of engaging in extortions and shakedowns of the Commonwealth (a state trying to get money from the Commonwealth?! Ye gods) and pre-emptively accusing it of ensuring that other Australians would be able to holiday in Fiji before they could holiday up north. Health Minister Greg Hunt piously declared it would be “a matter of the most serious and grave concern” that the Queensland government might have misled Queenslanders about the state of its hospitals.

Interestingly, though, they’ve refrained from referring directly to Palaszczuk, perhaps confirming Dennis Atkins’ suggestion that the premier is personally popular and attacking her doesn’t do the Coalition any good.

Labor is also doing well in NSW, although its lead there has softened. It’s looking at a nearly 6% swing, enough to deliver three seats. The removal of a popular Liberal premier thus introduces uncertainty for Morrison in what is a must-win state. That Nationals Leader and Deputy Premier John Barilaro also bailed out, along with Transport Minister Andrew Constance, might also give the impression of instability at the top of the government — although after 2019, does anyone think that’s a killer issue for voters?

And remember: Morrison and his office constantly leaked and backgrounded against Berejiklian, annoyed at her popularity and willingness to lead on bushfires and the pandemic while he was content to sit on his hands. Perrottet watched that sort of thing happen first hand, and might be disinclined to put up with it to the extent that his predecessor did. Both might want a closer working relationship than that between Morrison and Berejiklian.

And if the election isn’t until next year, Perrottet might prove successful and popular enough to boost the Coalition vote. On current form, Morrison needs a lot of help to eke out a win in Queensland and NSW.