MORRISON DRAWING FROM SUCCESSES OF THE HAWKE DYNASTY
BOB Hawke could be irascible in his temperament.
And he often was, Governor of WA Kim Beazley recalls, but never during Cabinet meetings.
“He didn’t make a god of it, but he had enormous respect for process and for the credibility of the meeting, but also that it really was a meeting which governed the country so it was treated seriously in relation to that,” says Beazley, who served as Defence and later Transport and Communications Minister in Hawke’s Cabinet.
“He would listen to the argument and could be swayed by it, but then, at a point after a lot of discussion, he would intervene to call it out and shut it down. You had all talked yourself out by then and were becoming repetitive.”
Hawke treated Cabinet meetings, which could last for six, eight or even 10 hours, so seriously that he become agitated when a minister, at times Paul Keating, was late, or when ministers had not read the Cabinet submissions circulated 10 days in advance. For reform that was too sensitive to circulate, for risk of it leaking, ministers knew they were expected to read through the submission ahead of time within the Cabinet room.
“Heaven help you if you hadn’t spent at least three hours in there,” Beazley says. Hawke would invite department and policy advisers over for a swim or game of tennis on a Sunday afternoon before knuckling down and go through the detail of Cabinet submissions. It was a ritual he followed religiously.
Hawke’s process for decision-making was so successful that, 35 years later, it is now being held up as the model to emulate by both current federal political leaders, Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese.
On the surface, a consultative Cabinet seems an obvious enough thing for a modern political leader to aspire to. In practice, it is more challenging to achieve.
Malcolm Turnbull would likely cite a return to proper cabinet processes and a consultative leadership style as part of his achievements in high office. He had disdain for what he described as the captain calls of the Abbott era.
Close observers of Turnbull, however, say that one of his great failings as prime minister was his habit of descending into the tumbleweeds when working through a complex policy dilemma.
Energy policy is a classic example, where Josh Frydenberg escaped unscathed from the disastrous collapse of the Coalition’s numerous policy positions, going on to climb the political ladder to Treasurer, maintaining the confidence of his colleagues. Turnbull, meanwhile, lost his leadership over the issue.
Instead of repeating his predecessor’s mistakes, Morrison is understood to be drawing inspiration from how Hawke’s Cabinet operated.
During the election campaign, Morrison was a oneman-band and hiding his divisive team was an integral part of his winning strategy.
In Government, he is making sure they take the lead formulating and selling policies, rather than do the heavy-lifting himself.
Like Hawke, Morrison does not intend to micro-manage his ministers. He says he wants to enable each minister to become an authority in their portfolio.