Few to mourn the loss of a truly pointless PM, Scott Morrison by Mark Kenny
To paraphrase Donald Horne, Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who go off to the defence sector. Or finance.So passes the latest ex-prime minister to have ducked the serious policy challenges he confronted when purporting to lead this nation.
Scott Morrison is expected to leave politics - finally - when federal parliament resumes on February 6, bringing to a close a period of unprecedented political blame-shifting, duplicity, opportunism, and defiant scientific ignorance.
It is said he has an interest in working in defence which seems right, hi-tech armaments being the perfect fit for the post-parliamentary Pentecostal eager to give back to the community.
Or perhaps it will be a portfolio approach combining fossil fuel directorships with the right-wing speaking circuit, teaming up again with Boris Johnson, who recently decreed Donald Trump was the leader the world needed right now.
They had all been tight, Trump awarding Morrison the Legion of Merit for "leadership in addressing global challenges".
Member for Cook Scott Morrison interjects during a siting of Parliament. Picture by Gary Ramage
The member for Cook's rise proved that in politics, quality is just one ingredient for preferment and probably not even the biggest. That would be guile, which he had in spades.
It got him his preselection in a safe seat, and it served him all the way through.
When Peter Dutton challenged Malcolm Turnbull in 2018, Morrison was not even in consideration. A bland man whose bearing was more that of an opinionated bursar than a reforming treasurer, he however, did know how to count.
"This is my leader and I'm ambitious for him" Morrison had declared at a press conference, his arm patronisingly draped over Turnbull's shoulder. "Yeah good on ya' ScoMo" the besieged PM responded woodenly, both men grinning like used car salesmen.
Two days later, Morrison had Turnbull's job. It was a miracle!
Scott Morrison, second from left, seated next to the prime minister he replaced, Malcolm Turnbull. Picture by Graham Tidy
There would be another miracle the following year when Morrison ruthlessly exaggerated Labor's tax reform agenda, honing in on a death tax that didn't exist.
It was a one-man demolition of Shorten Labor which had begun the campaign in a dominant position.
Liberals fell at his feet.
But Morrison's government was like the dog that caught the car, devoid of policy purpose and defined instead by political game-playing and manufactured culture wars.
Inevitably, scandals clogged the works, from sports rorts, bushfire holidays, corruption, climate, COVID, fiscal irresponsibility.
And of course, after he led his party to a scarifying defeat, it emerged that even his closest confidants had been deceived, their ministries secretly duplicated in case he needed to take over.
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Few Australians will mourn "ScoMo's loss to the legislature after a pointless and pernickety loiter on the public purse.
And few of his former colleagues will be sad to see him go, his presence only reminding voters of a government most would rather forget.
Mark Kenny
Columnist
Mark Kenny is The Canberra Times' political analyst and a professor at the ANU's Australian Studies Institute. He hosts the Democracy Sausage podcast. He writes a column every Sunday.
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