Daniel Andrews' blunt comment came the day after Scott Morrison attempted a dangerous threading of the needle: condemning open threats to hang Andrews, but understanding the frustrations which prompted them.

The Prime Minister is careful to give himself cover - he doesn't believe he's told a lie in public office - though prone to glibness in situations calling for sobriety.

But his intervention was calculated, an immediate pivot to his dry-run election slogan: Labor keeps telling you what to do.

In the context of threats to kill a colleague, it was a jarring reply likely to elicit pushback.

Andrews, perhaps eager to shift headlines from his sinking pandemic powers bill, didn't need a second invitation.

"We had to be in people's lives because there was no vaccine. And who forgot to order the vaccines?" he asked, not exactly rhetorically.

Some barbs were fired without prompting, going beyond the topic at hand. "I'm not here to treat you like you're French, mate. I'm here to say it like I know it to be," he quipped.

It could be a sign of things to come for the Prime Minister, after two years of picking fights with Labor premiers.

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State results rarely translate at federal elections, but it remains unclear if the emergence of muscular premiers during the pandemic will shift that dynamic.

It doesn't help Morrison that two potentially decisive states, WA and Queensland, are led by premiers he has delighted in targeting.

Anthony Albanese often lacks clarity as he attempts to land rhetorical punches. Morrison has reminded Western Australians he is the only other choice at a federal level.

But Mark McGowan remains extraordinarily popular in WA, after riding to the state's most dominant victory on the back of his hardline border stance.

Constant reminders that Morrison joined forces with Clive Palmer to tear down that border could prove more effective than anything Albanese can muster.

There is a logic to Morrison waiting until the last moment to head to the polls. Australia will be a very different place by May.

Lockdowns, and the vaccine bungle which extended them, may have faded from memory and the impact of an Albanese-McGowan double act could well be diluted.

But the threat appears to worry Simon Birmingham, who bemoaned a "conga line" of premiers potentially co-ordinating a hit.

"They ping a little message out: let's line the premiers up, we'll go out and create another phoney fight, do a bit of a pile on against Scott Morrison," he told Sky News.

That may well be the tactic. How effective it will be remains to be seen.

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