Campaigning in an ultra-marginal Victorian seat today, the Prime Minister appeared to concede the path to electoral victory wouldn't be charted by a bulldozer.
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It needed a more sensitive touch.
Scott Morrison admitted this morning there were things that needed to change with the way he did things.
It's already shaping up to be a key moment of the campaign, from a leader who's languishing behind in the polls.
"Over the last three years, and particularly the last two, what Australians have needed from me going through this pandemic has been strength and resilience," Mr Morrison said.
"Now, I admit that hasn't enabled Australians to see a lot of other gears in the way I work.
"And I know Australians know that I can be a bit of a bulldozer when it comes to issues and I suspect you guys know that too."
Labor leader Anthony Albanese seized the moment, addressing the assembled press in far-north Queensland and describing Mr Morrison as a "wrecker".
"A bulldozer wrecks things. A bulldozer knocks things over. I'm a builder. That's what I am," Mr Albanese said.
Still, it wasn't the most bizarre thing on the campaign trail.
As Mr Morrison and Liberal MP Gladys Liu slipped out one door from a media event, a noted Kim Jong-un impersonator entered through another.
Steve Evans, a Canberra Times reporter on hand to witness the bizarre turn of events described it as an "incomprehensible stunt".
"The impersonator seemed to have something against the Liberal candidate for the ultra-marginal seat of Chisholm in Melbourne, but who knows what or why? And who cares?" Evans wrote.
In more serious news, Defence Minister Peter Dutton has said a Chinese spy ship travelling on an unprecedented path as far south as the Western Australian coast is an "aggressive act" from China.
Mr Dutton said the patrol was hugging the WA coastline, had entered the Australian exclusive economic zone and was making its way towards Darwin.
The Foreign Minister, Marise Payne, and Labor spokeswoman on foreign affairs Penny Wong earlier faced off in a debate at the National Press Club, where both maintained Australia would not blink in the face of a more assertive China.
Meanwhile, the "gentle giant" at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy has been revealed in a new image for the first time.
The supermassive black hole - called Sagittarius A*, or SgrA* - is only the second one ever to be imaged.
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Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
