The bugler had sounded the final notes of the Last Post at Darwin's cenotaph when Scott Morrison laid the first Anzac Day wreath of the morning.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Clad defiantly in suit and tie despite the humid pall over the city, the Prime Minister had already set the agenda that would dominate the airwaves that day. It was only 6.45am.
"Our world is changing," he told those gathered at the dawn service on Monday, the sky still dark. "An arc of autocracy is challenging the rules-based order our grandparents secured. And democratic free peoples are standing together again."
Darwin, Mr Morrison acknowledged at the service, was where war hit Australia's shores 80 years ago. Asked on morning television about the Prime Minister's speech hours later, Defence Minister Peter Dutton turned the heat up a few degrees, saying Australians must prepare for another conflict.
"The only way you can preserve peace is to prepare for war," Mr Dutton said.
The Prime Minister had brought his campaign to northern Australia last Sunday, with plans to use a week clear of the COVID-struck Anthony Albanese to barnstorm through the region's constellation of cities.
In the outback Northern Territory seat of Lingiari, where the Prime Minister campaigned that day in Alice Springs, the government sees an opening to win an electorate long held by retiring Labor stalwart Warren Snowdon. The seat of Solomon, in Darwin, is another target for the Coalition, held by Labor with only a slim 3.1 per cent margin.
In north Queensland, where Mr Morrison travelled next, the Coalition is also working to protect the electorates of Herbert, in Townsville, and Leichhardt further north.
The strategy last week combined defence and attack for the Coalition. The government rolled the dice for the two Northern Territory seats while shoring up support in north Queensland.
This election, where Labor needs to win a net seven seats to form government, the fall of even one Northern Territory electorate to the Coalition would be a considerable setback for the opposition. Mr Morrison knows it.
Meanwhile, Labor has its work cut out in northern Queensland. The Coalition wants to turn what is a hard task for the ALP in flipping the region's seats into an impossible one.
There was another reason for the Coalition campaign's foray into the north last week.
Having lost the advantage on national security in the "khaki election" following China's security pact with Solomon Islands the previous week, Mr Morrison set out to wrest it back. In fact, he had no choice but to salvage national security as one of the main pillars of his campaign.
Darwin, Alice Springs and Townsville - each cities with different but significant roles in Australia's defence - were the ideal settings for the Coalition's task last week.
Having landed in Alice on Sunday, Mr Morrison wasted no time, laying out a "red line" against a Chinese military base in Solomon Islands.
His Anzac Day warning the next morning echoed meaningfully, having been delivered in a city that was bombed during the last major conflict to reach Australia.
Top End two-up
Mr Dutton's words of war on Anzac Day had already made headlines by the time the media pack following the Coalition's campaign waited for the Prime Minister to visit Cazalys Palmerston Club for a photo opportunity.
Bagpipists had played Waltzing Matilda and families gathered for post-Anzac Day parade drinks when attention swept to the front of the bar.
"ScoMo's here!" one woman cried, as the Prime Minister entered the club and began pulling beers for locals. He stood confidently behind the bar like a well-rehearsed publican, lit intermittently by flashing cameras.
MORE FEDERAL ELECTION NEWS:
Mr Morrison tossed some coins in a round of two-up, cameramen and photographers jammed in around him. The rest of the room, well aware of their unexpected guest, watched on with amusement and no small measure of excitement.
One of them was veteran Glen Hall, from Darwin, who served in the navy and spent most of his working life on submarines.
A visit from a political leader like Mr Morrison could influence his vote in the election, he said, even if he usually voted Labor.
"He's the PM, he's the big guy, and he has time to drop into these little clubs. I think it's fantastic," Mr Hall said.
The veteran was undecided about his vote, as were many of his friends. He wanted to see a solution for a less-publicised but deeply painful defence issue, the delays for services personnel in receiving support after leaving the military.
Labor had work to do on another front, if it was to convince him.
"I really don't think [Anthony] Albanese is the right fit," Mr Hall said.
"I'd like to see Jason Clare in that job," he added, referring to the Labor campaign spokesman whose strong media performances have drawn attention since Mr Albanese's COVID infection.
If there are many voters like Mr Hall in the Northern Territory, the Prime Minister's election two-up bet on Solomon and Lingiari may pay off.
'Tip of the spear'
Next day, the front page of the Townsville Bulletin spoke loudly about the garrison city's proud history as a defence hub. A photo above the news splash showed commander of the 3rd brigade, Brigadier Kahlil Fegan, leading an Anzac Day march.
Mr Morrison had landed in the city on Monday evening, ready to promise cash for a Townsville hydrogen hub, and to announce electricity cost relief for small- to medium-sized businesses.
Townsville, with a large Australian Defence Force presence, is what local Liberal National Party MP and veteran Phillip Thompson calls the "tip of the spear" when it comes to Australia's deployments and overseas operations.
If Mr Dutton is talking about "preparing for war", then Townsville's experiences raise a point about the need for combat readiness.
It was a major source of deployments in the last year, Mr Thompson told ACM.
"When the Afghan rescue mission happened, it was hours' notice to move, not months," he said.
"So if you're not on top of your game, and you're not actually ready to do the job, then it creates a risk for their lives and creates a risk for our sovereignty, and it creates a national security risk.
"Australian soldiers are very professional, and they're very good at their job. And I want to see them continue to get the best kit and also the best training."
The rhetoric of war sent jitters through the nation last week, but geography gives the national security debate a different and even more ominous hue in northern Australia. Solomon Islands is only 1700km from Cairns.
James Cook University politics and international relations expert Anna Hayes said the northern Australian region's people were highly aware of the threat of growing militarisation in the Pacific.
"People are worried about that, because we're in the easy firing distance. Now, I don't think it's going to come to that, but that's certainly going to be front and centre of people's minds, because it will be making people think of what occurred in the last World War, where northern Australia was bombed," she said.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Mr Morrison refused to detail how he would enforce the "red line" he had drawn a few days before about the Solomon Islands. The nation was left guessing, but the Prime Minister had achieved a political purpose. He appeared firm - while leaving plenty of room on what that firmness would look like.
Mr Morrison, speaking to local Townsville radio, tried cooling things down after his defence minister's Anzac Day rhetorical flare-up, and said he didn't expect war to happen soon.
But, he's pressing the point on national security this election, convinced the Coalition is the superior option for any voter worried about events in Australia's own region.
The Prime Minister is hoping northern Australia agrees.
- with Dan Jervis-Bardy