Scott Morrison bowed to political reality in his first trip west since the borders opened.
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Travelling through the realm of Mark McGowan, boasting the most dominant mandate of any Australian politician, what has been a snarl throughout the pandemic turned into a whimper.
Your premier will still be your premier in June, the PM assured voters. This is about federal Labor.
"I think WA has travelled its own path, and rightly. The results speak for themselves," he said on Thursday.
Labor has designs on three seats in WA, and this is not the time nor place to be deepening enmities. The election is on a knife edge, with each seat potentially the difference between majority and minority government.
Morrison's senior ministers have lined up to bash McGowan over his hardline border stance, even after the federal government abandoned its backing of Clive Palmer's High Court challenge.
"Did the Premier convince me to change my mind? Yes, he did," Morrison was eager to stress.
There's now also an unconvincing denial comparisons to cavemen from kids' movie The Croods were directed at WA.
Asked about vaccine mandates, a topic he has been particularly bullish about, his response was tellingly tepid.
"I'll leave those matters to the premier, because they're entirely for his judgement," he said.
The significance of that reversal hardly needs stating.
Morrison has never been shy in airing grievances over Labor premiers' cautious approach.
Even as the Omicron variant threatened to rip through Christmas, obligatory jabs were only justifiable in certain sectors. Anyone should be able to get a coffee at 80 per cent coverage, he said.
McGowan's 90 per cent target was water under the bridge this week.
To add substance to the rhetoric, there was the obligatory spending blitz - more from Commonwealth coffers for Edith Cowan University and to build a cycling bridge over the Swan River.
But it's telling where the Prime Minister hasn't been for three days.
South Australia's Liberal Premier Steven Marshall could be a single-term relic by Sunday.
Dispatched to SA instead was John Howard, seen as an experienced pair of hands to stem the tide.
The elevation of state premiers during the pandemic means they may play a large, perhaps unique, role in this federal campaign.
But Morrison was non-committal on standing alongside Daniel Andrews or Annastacia Palaszczuk, two other Labor premiers with whom relations have been testy.
"We'll be quite busy between now certainly and the election," was all he would muster.
The campaign is certain to include trips to both states.
In Queensland, the Coalition will need to repeat its unexpectedly strong 2019 showing.
In Victoria, it is fighting off challenges from independents in key seats.
Morrison has attempted to frame his relationship with Andrews as cordial and professional, even close.
Whether he is in the mood to let that bygone be bygone is unclear.
But Shane Warne's state funeral is scheduled for the day after the federal budget, a move Andrews has denied is timed to suck oxygen out of a key Coalition media blitz.
McGowan insists Anthony Albanese will join him during the campaign, in which he will be vocally backing his federal colleagues.
Morrison's first visit west went without vitriol from an ascendant state premier. Trips to flood-ravaged Queensland might show he can't bank on that from all of them.