Great survivor
LET’S be honest. This time last week Scott Morrison was not expecting to be Prime Minister of Australia any time soon.
When asked if he was going to run for the top job himself, he grabbed Malcolm Turnbull by the shoulders and said “This is my leader.”
Peter Dutton, however, was totally expecting to be the man with the keys to the Lodge. And if it wasn’t going to be him, common sense and the bookies were saying it would be Julie Bishop.
Bishop is popular with the Liberal base. She is the polar opposite to Bill Shorten.
Bishop would have had a fighting chance of saving the furniture. But the current new generation of Liberals are not fighting Bill Shorten, unfortunately for the nation, they are still fixated on fighting themselves.
Despite her obvious retail appeal, Bishop received just 11 votes in the ballot. This is an astonishing admission that this new generation could not stomach the idea of another unmarried female prime minister with no children.
This approach to stable government is deeply unsettling for onlookers and ultimately unsustainable as a method of managing an economy.
So Mr Morrison got elected and now the job of personal rebranding has begun. The pro-Morrison press has started running pieces about how Scott is just a normal bloke. He’s not an elitist, not a big brain thinker. Just a bloke “from the Shire”.
On Friday night, conservative commentator Nikki Savva took to the airwaves and started the charge.
“One of the attractions of Morrison for people was ... he can identify with them because he does have a young family, he is a footy freak, he is also a very religious person.”
Morrison goes to the Horizon Church, a 1200-seat auditorium where it is not uncommon for parishioners to start speaking in tongues.
But he’s a devout party man. He is not standing in the outer.
Morrison was a director of the party before becoming a candidate and then he was the Minister for Immigration under the Tony Abbott Government and refused to answer questions about “on water matters”.
He is the politician who recently brought a lump of coal into the House of Reps as a demonstration of his view on the best option for energy. He assisted Malcolm Turnbull in the removal of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, then stood against Julie Bishop and drove her into political oblivion.
But in Prime Minister Morrison’s first press conference, he tried to put the past behind him and told the media that he will be working for us. The Australian people. He’s going to bring electricity prices down. This is the new big idea. Funny, because that electricity prices promise sounds just like Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Dutton all rolled into one. This is not change, this is tap dancing.
The removal of Turnbull and Bishop puts a hole in the Liberal Party fundraising.
Without these two it is hard to see who is going to be dragging the donors through the door.
Turnbull never lost a poll for preferred Prime Minister. He was knifed because he didn’t fit in.
This coup was driven by revenge. This is a wound that takes a long time to heal.
Dutton was supposed to re-set the compass. He failed. He is now the man responsible for destroying his party in an attempt to save it. It may take a decade before the party recovers and then there will truly be a new generation of leaders.
So who is the real next generation?
Andrew Hastie is waiting patiently. He looks right. He asks the right Dorothy Dixers and his military background will make him palatable in the electorates north of Byron Bay.
Hastie was one of the 43 who guaranteed the schism. He has a young family and he goes to church. Sounds crazy enough to work. Last week the Liberal Party lost the confidence of the people and the moral high ground. It can never again claim the “stable government” brand. The final vote of 40 to Dutton and 45 to Morrison clearly demonstrates that a culture war of Darwinian proportions is continuing unabated.
All the reasons given for ridding the Liberal Party of Malcolm still exist. The far right of the Coalition is no better off than it was this time last week.
Morrison and Frydenberg are not a new generation. They are safe hands from middle management, taking over while the search for the new CEO takes place.
Morrison may be a “footy freak” but he is only ever going to be an acting Prime Minister. Ross Mueller is a playwright and freelance director