“Take it down a few notches,” Scott Morrison told politicians on Tuesday night as the country was burning. “There have been a lot of provocative comments made over the last few days from all sides of the debate and I find it very unhelpful.”
It’s not the first time Morrison has called for people to stay quiet. He’s complained that Extinction Rebellion protesters are “testing the right to protest”, and called for children striking climate action to get back to school.
(Of course it’s different if you’re Israel Folau saying gay people are destined to go to hell. That shows “strength of character”.)
Yet even while demanding others pipe down, Morrison himself is well known for dramatic displays and provocative prose.
This is the man who strutted into parliament with a lump of coal held high.
He stood in the same room a few years later and imitated a famous Kazakh journalist, saying, “I know what Borat would think of Labor’s policies on emissions reduction: verrrrry niiiiice“.
He suggested Save the Children workers had been “making false claims” and “allegedly coaching self-harm” for detainees on Nauru.
He said a job could serve as “a prescription for a young person with mental health issues“.
He implied the death of asylum seeker Reza Berati on Manus was Berati’s fault.
He thinks the legacy of Australia’s bloody colonisation amounts to just “a few scars from some mistakes and things that you could have done better“.
He wants “more learning in schools and less activism in schools“. But that learning shouldn’t be about different sexualities, a thought which makes his “skin curl“.
And he believes he has been persecuted and subject to “hate speech and bigotry” for his religious views.
In short, Morrison would prefer everyone walk silently on, while his home state of NSW burns. He’s the only one allowed to make provocative statements around here.
“… This is the man who strutted into parliament with a lump of coal held high. …” this sentence and that image was all you needed. They will be the enduring epitaph of this man and his time as a political leader in Australia. They simply, yet elegantly, display his lack of judgement, his lack of empathy, his lack of understanding and his lack of policy capabilities. The legacy of a man and the legacy of the ‘least worst option for prime minister’.
Amber, well said and I like the robustness of the article plastered as it is with examples.
It could have gone further with a tripartite criticism of the Nats and Labor as well. Of-course, the current bushfires is the most telling example with none of these parties prepared to fess up for their years of inaction, with them seeking to avoid accountability as the three wise monkeys: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.
Some would say the media, particularly foreign influenced media like Murdoch, are also complicit in shaping outrage at protesters causing a little inconvenience, but not that caused by climate change.
And there ought to be particular condemnation of Labor supporting the outrage against ‘vegan teorrorists’ who shine a light on animal cruelty. Where will Labor stand on ‘union terrorists’ who shine a light on dangerous, abusive, exploitive employers? Labor’s been quiet on Morrison’s ‘thoughts and prayers’ policy for the bushfire victims; are they going to support Morrison’s ‘thoughts and prayers’ policy to the worker victims of wage theft?
Perhaps, ‘it’s time’ to wipe the lot and start afresh. That would tone it down a bit.
It’s often said that in a democracy we tend to get the government we deserve. I keep wondering what we’ve that’s so bad that we deserve this lot.
The PM is also the empath who said from opposition in 2011 that the government shouldn’t pay the costs of refugees travelling from Christmas Island to Sydney to attend funerals of other refugees killed in the Christmas Island shipwreck.
He backed down on his mispeaking of course, but it was clear sign of the man.
I always love a Borat ref, but I can’t even parse that Borat joke. Did Morrison think the point of that character was that Khazaks are stupid? I vaguely remember Morrison butchering another pop culture ref, might have been the Castle? I have repressed the memories for my own sanity. Can we have Abbott back? Remember Sir Prince Phillip? The onion? Good times.