Scott Morrison will exit politics today in a blaze of theology, if his remarks to his News Corp handlers are anything to go by — “urging Australians to reconnect with the Judaeo-Christian values that underpinned the country’s successful representative democracy”, in the words of Murdoch drone Simon Benson.
“We should be careful about diminishing the influence and voice of Judaeo-Christian faith in our Western society,” Morrison himself tells Benson, “as doing so risks our society drifting into a valueless void. It is about respecting each other’s human dignity through our creation, by God’s hand, in God’s image, for God’s glory, where each human life is eternally valued, is unique, is worthy, is loved and capable.”
There’s some irony in Benson relaying these words, given he carefully kept secret that Morrison misled his own colleagues and the country about swearing himself into multiple ministries in a power grab that ultimately has no explanation other than Morrison’s self-conception as personally chosen by God.
That belief in divine selection — revealed by David Hardaker in a brilliant Crikey investigative series in 2021 — was always the key to understanding Morrison. According to his supporters and New Corp’s culture warriors, critics attacked Morrison’s faith. But the problem was never his religion. Australia has had prime ministers of strong, mediocre and no faith at all. The problem was how Morrison saw himself through his own strange composite of a faith, and his belief he was above the basic standards of accountability and behaviour of the secular world. It wasn’t until after he was ejected from the Lodge that the full scope of his belief in his own divine exceptionalism became clear to his colleagues.
So Morrison’s ardent belief in individual “human dignity” mainly applied to himself. He was the one chosen by God and everyone else was on a lower level. Colleagues he kept in the dark and gaslighted. Voters he lied to. If it served Morrison’s political purposes, human life didn’t have much value or dignity at all. Reza Barati, murdered on Manus Island trying to flee his attackers, was afforded none by then immigration minister Morrison. Robodebt victims got none from social security minister Morrison. COVID-19 victims in nursing homes got none. Women victimised by political predators got none.
Like Morrison’s God, who interfered in the 2019 election but apparently sat out in 2022, Morrison’s idea of human dignity is selective.
But, fair cop, Morrison isn’t the first and will hardly be the last politician to display a vivid contrast between his behaviour in public office and his professed religious ideals. Morrison was pursuing a bigger agenda — to reestablish religion in the public sphere. Indeed, posit religion as superior to fallible human institutions. “God’s kingdom will come. It is in his hands, we trust in Him. We don’t trust in governments,” he said in 2022. But simultaneously, he insists those “fallible” institutions are the product of the West’s cultural superiority, our “Judaeo-Christian values” which are under threat from the “drift of secularism”.
This is a long-running culture war trope — the assertion that Western institutions and modes of thought are the peculiar product of Christianity, rather than a long struggle for individual freedom of thought and expression from organised religion, and economic changes that drove trade, urbanisation, specialisation and the emergence of class. As Morrison can attest so well, what are now accepted Western ideas about human dignity — that arbitrarily selected groups like women, or LGBTGIA+ people, are not targeted for discrimination — continue to be contested by the “Judaeo-Christian” institutions he himself champions.
Part of this culture war is the insistence that the only alternative to “Judaeo-Christian values” is a secular “void” — ironic because it’s a charge that primarily comes from the side of politics that has championed the ultimate values “void” that is neoliberal economic policies. The almost 40% of Australians who say they have no faith at all can explain to Morrison why they don’t exist in a “void” as he suggests they do, but let’s look instead at Morrison himself.
With his “Judaeo-Christian values”, he lied in office, pursued unlawful policies that immiserated people, misled his own colleagues, and placed short-term political gain ahead not merely of proper leadership but basic decency. If Morrison wants to talk about a valueless void today, he could start with his own record.
Who is this Judy O’Christian woman and why does the former prime minister keep harassing her?
I wonder if Judy O’Christian is related to the patron saint of worplace health and safety, Saint Judy of Care?
She’s an Irish nun.
Laura Norder’s cousin, Griselda.
The irony is that many of those ‘western…modes of thought’ were developed against, and usually in opposition to, those Judeo-Christian values cited as foundational. The ‘enlightenment’ marked the beginning of a shift away from a roughly thousand year Christian era in Europe – a period subsequently referred to as ‘the dark ages’. It speaks volumes to the deceit and hypocrisy of Christian institutions and believers of Scomo’s ilk that they continue to try and take credit for the adoption of values they spent centuries opposing.
His total lack of self awareness is breathtaking. Only matched by his lack of any principles.
Godly? Spare us all!
Robodebt, cruelty to the less fortunate, cruelty to refugees. The completion of the wrecking of the Liberal Party as a reasonable centre right alternative.
Unquestionably the worst PM ever.
Howard killed more.
It was Howard who began the destruction of the Liberal Party.
However, Howard did have two (only two!) runs on the board: gun control and the GST. But that’s two more than Morrison’s government ever managed.
The modern Liberal Party doesn’t do good government anymore. And hasn’t done so for a very long while. And, worse still, there is absolutely no prospect of any improvement.
Morrison is truly emblematic of the modern Liberal Party.
I’d go as far as to say that in the Anglosphere conservative parties are all following the Republican playbook, as much as they can manage.
How in the name of Scomo’s God does the GST count as a run on the board. To me it counts as a dismissal or reason for dismissal. It raised the cost of most goods to 10% including some of those that weren’t on the Wholesales Tax list. It put a tax on services for the first time – building, insurance, public transport, the last of which made it uncompetitive on a cost basis with private transport if push came to shove. It increased compliance cost for businesses of all types. Its collection by the Federal Government to be divided up amongst the States and Territories made it a cause for much complaint whereby few States other than Tasmania are satisfied.
You should have stopped at gun control. But you have to then ask…why did it work for Howard and yet because similar earlier measures were proposed for introduction in NSW alone in 1987, Premier Unsworth, the Festival of Light, cardigan wearing Premier of the time, came a gutser. 3 years after he was booted out by Greiner, we got the Strathfield mass shooting massacre which left 8 dead and 6 wounded after Wade Frankum went on a rampage using one of the guns subject to Unsworth’s initial control measures. Yet it’s all hail to the Chief with little Johnny. I guess like the kid that gets 1/100 or 10/100 for an exam, at least he spelt his name correctly.
By golly though ‘Metal..’ the GST made billions for his mates in the Finance and Accounting industries and gave inflation a tremendous boost
Bit rich to praise Howard’s dog breakfast of a GST (bucketloads of exemptions thanks to the Democrats) as a glorious reform. No GST on those mega private school fees.
No, definitely not the GST. It’s a regressive tax and hits those on lower incomes hardest.
I’ll concede the gun laws – only a conservative PM could have got those through.
I would argue that it is the rest of us, except Jen, who lack Scotty’s self-awareness. He is aware that he is on Earth to do God’s will, ergo whatever he does is God’s will. Probably a good thing we don’t all have the same self-awareness, or there could be fisticuffs.
You forgot his ignorance of history
Surely you are forgetting McMahon and Abbott!
I’m old enough to remember McMahon. He was just bloody hopeless. He didn’t diminish us all. Abbott was just weird. Destructive too. But Morrison was bereft of any positive qualities. Australia was a much worse place as a result of Morrison’s prime ministership.
Godly? Unfortunately not: god doesn’t exist, but sadly Scummo does
The Liberal Party has never been a reasonable alternative.
The fact it becomes ever more unconscionable an option does nothing to diminish this plainest of facts.
“The Liberal Party has never been a reasonable alternative.”
You’re absolutely right on that point.
But in extremis it would be good to have an alternative government that doesn’t result in a smoking wreckage, if we unavoidably need a pro tem alternative.
Then why do the media keep talking it (the Liberal Party) up?
Their job is to keep the Overton window facing right, so the largest possible number of folks continue to perceive the centre as hard left.
Your’e absolutely right. The msm are desperately working to save this current Liberal Party from well deserved oblivion.
The msm sees a minority Green/ALP government as the first step to another (vicious and corrupt) Coalition government.
Sadly, the Greens will be happy to help.
Careful what you wish for.
We need to realise that despite their origins, Labor have more or less been the bad guys ever since Whitlam was taken down, while the LNP have morphed from the bad guy role to a moustache-twirling caricature of utmost villainy, which may as well be intended to make Labor look like the good guys.
Labor have become handmaidens of the ruling class, serving only their donors and propping up the decadent status quo. What redeeming features they possess are too small in number and scope to matter in the face of this reality, other than to distract people from it.
So either of the major parties are determined to reduce this nation to smoking wreckage. Our only option is to desert them for the Greens and whatever halfway worthwhile independents there are. And we need to go hard – when the Alternative Liberal Party forms a minority government, you watch them create an informal coalition with the supposed ‘opposition’ to sideline those with the nominal balance of power. We need the majors to be smashed down to less than 50% between them, yesterday.
Of course, this is a pipe dream, and the only possible future is the smoking ruin.
‘Human life doesn’t have much value or dignity at all’ for the people of Gaza either, apparently.
Certainly not for those who are part of the “Judaeo-Christian values” establishment Henk. You make an extremely apt point with that post.
Especially since many of them are Christians. One of the Christian churches in the West Bank recently had as its nativity scene ‘baby Jesus in the rubble’.
The ABC Morrison Love Fest after the speech, starring LNP Luminaries, David Speers, Greg Jennett and George Brandis was sickening.
No mention of Robo-Debt and the corrupt rorts and lies that defined Morrison’s time in Parliament.
To that ‘cross-section’ : what he used his elected position to do to other people ‘isn’t important’ apparently? The results of his decisions isn’t important? The mendacious duplicity of the man – his ‘legacy’/history – is ‘gone’? …. ‘Should be more of it’?
Says as much about them as anything.
“Tributes to a Drop-kick Competition”
Unfortunately if we want to keep the ABC and Insiders, poor old Speersy et al. has to be a little balanced to the centre, otherwise all we’ll be left with is Sky new, or Meta not funding decent journalism.
Whilst I totally agree with your sentiment, we don’t want the ABC to only have crikey readers as the audience.
If you look back the ABC coverage of scomo, journo’s have certainly addressed all the items you mentioned, but bringing this up in this context of his departure is akin to sharing the wrongdoings at a stag do at the stags funeral. Yes – his exit speech was atrocious and i find disgraceful – particularly bringing religion in to politics. But don’t blame the journo’s!