Australians have just learned their election will be held on 21 May. At a crucial time for the country, Nick Bryant sees a contest that will be defined, to a large part, by what it lacks. There has long been something Biblical about the prime ministership of Scott Morrison, a Pentecostal Christian who declared on the night of his bolt from the blue victory in the 2019 election: "I've always believed in miracles". Since then, much of his term in office has read like chapters from the Old Testament. There have been fires, floods and the pestilence of a global pandemic. Even his defiant stance towards China has a Manichean frame: a good versus evil struggle between freedom and authoritarianism - the "great polarisation", he calls it. Recently, he sought to imprint his faith-based politics on Australian law, by pushing unsuccessfully for a Religious Discrimination Act offering legal protections to people of faith who made "statements of belief" - a charter, claimed its opponents, for the homophobic and transphobic. It was the Liberal Party giant John Howard who rated his chances of ever becoming prime minister as "Lazarus with a triple bypass", after losing the 1987 federal election from the opposition benches and being deposed as party leader two years later. Morrison, who stands at the head of one of the world's most formidable election-winning machines, isn't yet Lazarus, whom the Bible says Jesus raised from the dead. Still, there would be certainly be a water-into-wine feel to a second Morrison victory. More so than a modern-day Lazarus, my sense is that Morrison has come to resemble a Midas-like figure from Greek mythology. Yet rather than gold, many things he touches end up being tarnished. His staged photo opportunities, a hallmark of his tenure, are a case in point. After posing for the cameras mopping up an indoor basketball court during a visit to the flood zone in Brisbane, he came in for an acid shower of criticism because the press availability looked contrived and choreographed rather than part of a meaningful clean-up. On a visit to a hair salon in Victoria, he washed a female customer's hair, which instantly brought to mind his controversial statement during the 2019-2020 bushfire season that he "doesn't hold a hose". A soft focus profile on the Channel Nine news programme, 60 Minutes, also became the stuff of mocking memes, when he picked up a ukulele and serenaded his family with the Dragon classic, April Sun in Cuba. The interview, which was intended to rehabilitate his battered image, ended up inflicting even more self-harm. The former marketing man's problems have not merely been presentational. His government has been hit by the high-profile resignations of the Education Minister Alan Tudge and Attorney General Christian Porter. His close friend, Brian Houston, the founding pastor of the Hillsong megachurch, had to resign after an internal investigation revealed he had engaged in inappropriate conduct towards two women. In parliament, the prime minister has struggled to advance his legislative agenda. Even the unveiling of the new budget, a pre-election cash splash for voters, was overshadowed. On budget night, the outgoing Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, in a valedictory speech brutal even by Australian standards, called him an "autocrat" and "a bully with no moral compass". On the eve of calling the election, Morrison was also haunted by a past controversy, surrounding his selection 15 years ago as the Liberal Party candidate for the seat of Cook, the scene of the 2005 anti-Muslim Cronulla riots. Morrison, it is claimed, raised concerns about his Liberal rival for pre-selection, Michael Towke, questioning whether a candidate of Lebanese heritage was viable in Cook, especially after the Cronulla riots. Morrison called the allegations "bitter and malicious slurs". The beleaguered prime minister has also never fully rebounded from the furore surrounding his family holiday to Hawaii in the midst of the bushfires two years ago. That was why the ukulele and his rendition of April Sun in Cuba misfired so badly. Many viewers naturally thought of his December sun in Hawaii. Pointing to Australia's comparatively low death rate and robust economy, Morrison will argue that he has steered the country through Covid. But state premiers, who frequently usurped the prime minister, are often credited with the early success in dealing with the pandemic. In the second year of Covid, the federal government has faced criticism for the slow rollout of vaccines - the "stroll-out", it was dubbed - and failure to provide enough rapid antigen tests when Omicron hit last last year.