So many demented things have happened so far during this election campaign that our sense of what is deemed normal is now officially warped beyond recognition.

This is the only possible explanation for the large round of general indifference that greeted Scott Morrison's confirmation he wasn't really expecting people from his party to show up to the Liberal launch in Melbourne this weekend.

"It's not going to be a party hoopla event," Mr Morrison said on 7.30 this week.

"It's not about the Liberal Party and it's not about the National Party … It's not about who is coming, it's about who will be listening."

Well, if doubt remains about who will be listening when the Liberal Party formally launches its 2019 election campaign on Sunday, there is absolutely none about the voice to whom they'll be tuning in.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 19 minutes 5 seconds 19 m Scott Morrison's full 7.30 interview

The Morrison one-man band

Scott Morrison has been leader of the Liberal Party for just nine months now, and already he is Justin Timberlake to its NSYNC; Phil Collins to its Genesis; Gwen Stefani to its No Doubt.

On one level, it's an extraordinary tale of survival. I mean, if your band's had a horrific internal row and your lead singer's been sacked and your guitarist has resigned and your lead tambourine has popped home to Adelaide to spend more time with his children, while half the remaining band members aren't talking to each other and the other half are in professional rehab, then a solo career isn't so much an indulgence as an existential necessity.

And it has to be said that for a man with essentially one tune to play, and nobody to accompany him, Scott Morrison's doing a transfixingly good job.

He's pulling the carrots and kicking the footies and being the campaign nice guy who picks up the old ladies and being the shouty guy, sometimes on the same day, and being the superannuation details guy and being the health guy and attacking Bill Shorten and empathising with him when people are mean about his mum and thumping out his reliable crowd-pleaser "Dear Economic Prudence" and remembering not to play the other old favourite because it reminds people of Peter Dutton.

That's a lot of things to remember, but I guess the calming element to the whole arrangement is that when you're doing it all yourself you don't have to lie awake worrying that some dingleberry on your team will accidentally set a bin on fire when you give them one simple job.

Leigh Sales asked Mr Morrison on Monday: "Who will have the upper hand in driving Liberal Party policy if you're re-elected? The climate change sceptics who killed the National Energy Guarantee, voted against same-sex marriage and orchestrated Malcolm Turnbull's downfall, or the mainstream of the party?"

Mr Morrison answered, leaning forward and lowering his voice for full effect: "I will."

Righto.

The trouble, of course, is that when a reasonable person looks to a political party, they do actually expect to see a political party, as entertaining as it is for a while to watch a guy who can play the piano accordion with his toes.

And while nobody would envy the reality of Mr Morrison's position, which is that there isn't a conference facility in Melbourne with the sort of public liability insurance that would permit his two prime ministerial predecessors to attend an event simultaneously, the truth is that it is an extremely weird look.

The fact that he's up for it, though, makes perfect genetic sense.

Mum's the word

Parents are important, as everyone was reminded this week, when The Daily Telegraph celebrated the approach of Mother's Day by accusing Bill Shorten of lying about his mum, who died five years ago. (Well, if you can't say it with flowers.)

What followed, of course, was a two-day festival of people sharing reminiscences of the sacrifices their own mums had made, and about a million dollars' worth of free ads featuring Mr Shorten looking suspiciously like a person who really did sincerely honour and revere his mother, from whom he seemed to have learnt quite a bit.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 2 minutes 36 seconds 2 m 36 s Bill Shorten lashes out at 'gotcha s**t' after Daily Telegraph article about his mum

Parents are important; always, but especially in politics.

Paul Keating said the love of his mother and grandmother set him up for life:

"You've got to go through life with someone thinking you're special," he told Kerry O'Brien in the interview series he recorded for the ABC.

"You know, when you've got to get the sword out for real combat, I think having the sort of love quotient working for you is very powerful … it's almost like wearing that asbestos suit — you go through the fire but you're not going to be burned because someone loves you, you are complete, you are together."

Scott Morrison is very fortunate — as he acknowledged this week — to have a mother who's still around.

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When he was interviewed for Kitchen Cabinet in 2014, he recalled his mother encouraging him in his career as a child actor.

"For a few years … my mother traipsed around various commercials and photo shoots and voice overs singing things and I was the voice of Timmy the Lion, for the Sun Herald," he said. The family was madly into amateur theatre and would often put on plays.

Mr Morrison's dad, who served both as police commander and as mayor of Waverley, founded the local Boys Brigade in Bondi Junction and played rugby for Randwick.

He directed a performance of Oliver Twist and cast himself as Fagin (honestly, is this genetic one-man-band pattern ringing any bells?).

Parents prepare you for the things they expect you to face, and if they're any good they prepare you for the unexpected too.

Mrs Morrison can't have known, 40 years ago, that she and her husband were training young Scott to jump on stage and understudy every role in a Liberal Party unable — at a very particular future moment — to meet in public.

But somehow she did.