Imagine if Scott Morrison had been genuine in declaring he needed to change.
Imagine if he had used his ABC TV appearance on 7.30 last night to show what he meant when he told the nation that his leadership, modelled on a bulldozer, was dead.
Imagine if he had opened the interview by apologising for escaping the country, as bushfires ruined lives and livelihoods, more than two years ago.
Yes, that’s a long time ago now, but that still rattles voters when the issue of empathy is raised. Does he have the capacity to show empathy and to understand the lives of those he leads? Based on last night’s performance, it’s difficult to see the evidence.
But wasn’t Morrison Mark II supposed to be more aware?
Morrison could have been honest enough, too, in selling this week’s superannuation plan to admit that housing access had fallen backwards over the past decade; that his superannuation move was motivated by the fact that a young person, after a decade of Coalition rule, doesn’t stand a hope in hell of saving for a housing deposit.
Or he could have admitted that the influx of teal independents and other moderate candidates was in response to the frustration of voters at some of his government’s decisions.
He could have used last night’s interview to apologise, or to promise to do better, or to be more inclusive in leading the nation. Didn’t he promise that would be part of his make-up, in Morrison Mark II?
He could have shown that he understands the lives of those he serves. Parents filling the petrol tank on the way home from work. Teenagers whose mental health will be a lengthy reminder of a pandemic that has stolen so much from them. Those living in their aged care rooms with the freedoms of the past not obvious in their futures.
Instead, Morrison took credit for Australia’s pandemic response. And perhaps some of that is even justified, but wouldn’t a softer, more inclusive and introspective Morrison Mark II consider what might have been done differently? Or how we could assist those who continue to struggle in the pandemic’s aftermath?
So many missed opportunities to show off the new-beaut Morrison Mark II.
He stuck by his line that he was aware of the China-Solomon Islands deal, but wouldn’t it have been refreshing for him to admit what a genuine regional setback it now presents? Or that the tax system is unwieldy, not fit for purpose and in need of reform, but that he couldn’t promise to fix that in the next three years?
It appears Morrison Mark II, like his predecessor, will not cop criticism. Or admit fault. Or even hint at a vulnerability. Morrison Mark I was tough and brash and rammed through, because that’s what the nation needed.
So what does it need now? What could Morrison Mark II have promised that would have hinted that this new desire to change was as much his own as the wish of focus groups, polls and voters?
Morrison Mark II could have said his government got it wrong with the Murugappan family, and that they’d be returned to Biloela this week, before we went to the polls. That way we’d know he was true to his word.
He could have apologised to the young women of Australia, and told us what he learnt from Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins and Chanel Contos. Did he learn anything? Is it something he talked to his own daughters about? Does he admire their grit and persistence?
Who knows? Because Morrison Mark II was quiet on that front. He was quiet too on the integrity scandals that have enveloped his government, on its inactivity over climate change, and how he will be a better and more inclusive leader.
He was loud and shouty and dismissive and blind to any fault he might have. He deflected and dismissed questions and didn’t blink at his own suggestion that his will, determination and strength are what the nation needs.
Voters will decide that in just a handful of days. But last night showed that Morrison Mark II is dead; he didn’t even make it to the ballot paper.
And public service bashing again, to defend his rorts. Dividing Australians is ingrained in him.
The same old snake oil salesman ,still standing over women interviewers still a bull shxtter and a bulldozer,still unable to string together a sentence without a lie .
No more rorts no more lies ICAC and government change overdue
Several points. Jason Failinski recently chaired a committee looking at housing affordability and trumpeted the Coalition’s commitment to, in effect, doing nothing genuine about housing affordability (the report just canvassed the customary shibboleths and myths), but one key point made in the report was that allowing people to access (aka pillage) their super to buy housing would …… yep, force up prices!! This is, of course, an option available to those who didn’t withdraw all or much of their super during Covid; an option likely available to many women who are in low paid jobs and have pitiful super balances. I further wonder, to myself, or perhaps out loud (my wife prefers to vote Liberal, so she doesn’t listen to me on this stuff), how much Morrison was “bulldozing” during the numerous occasions, by which I mean very regularly over the course of the time he spent pretending to be the PM and a leader, when he made grand announcements about what he was doing and going to do – when in truth he had done nothing and would do nothing. That “do nothing, avoid responsibility at all costs” failing is really one of Morrison’s defining traits (amongst a number of other major character flaws that regularly compete as his standout neurotic peccadilloes). How on earth are “we” so collectively stupid as to think this guy could ever be anything but an incoherent, babbling mish-mash of neurotic ideas largely drawn from his faith; a faith allows him to be cravenly selfish and vindictive towards those he hates – mostly the disadvantaged – and keep his conscience clear. How are we, and the media so collectively stupid as to hear the Coalition will fund its election promises with “efficiency dividends” – by which it means it will slash costs in the public sector (austerity by another name – exactly what Bobo Boofboof is doing as PM in the UK) and not ask which services? It all shows jus how little self-awareness Morrison has – he thinks he is being Morrison II, when he is even more determinedly trapped as Morrison I. He is what he is – a blundering buffoon.
More cuts to the public service so Morrison can contract services out to his buddies in the big end of town! Or worse – privatise! Makes my blood boil!!!!! Corruption writ large!!!!
Yes, accurate description. And the main-stream don’t seem to care. Bewildering. I read wher the Republicans are now resorting to issuing a swathe of electoral half-triths, outright lies and deliberate misinformation, with a view towards tying up the opposition heirarchy in searching for ways to disprove the rubbish. Waste everybody’s time, and achieve nothing good for the country….just like Morrison. How low have they sunk.
‘He could have…. he could have…. he could have……..’
No he COULDN’T! That is his very essence, if he even has one. The attempt to recast himself was just another bit of fakery, and embedded in it was more typical hubristic arrogant bulldust about providing ‘strength and resilience’ for us in the pandemic. No one expected any change, Madonna King. Even the scoundrel himself would claim he only meant it to apply after winning the election, and no one in their right mind would believe that either.
Ah yes, but don’t forget that the promised change wasn’t free. It came with a condition. “You have to re-elect me first.”
Yes we wouldn’t see Morrison II unless we trust him on that to vote for him. Wow what a great deal.
From “Happy Leigh, happy to” to “Good to talk to you” a 26 and a half minute BS reinforcement of the only Morrison that was ever on offer – despite what some have been holding out for.
From the opening “dozer in his various other jobs’ – including before parliament – that he got sacked from? … That included how he “won Cook” from under Towke? But Sales dropped that chance, among all the others.
His “Beauty Point Bowls Club” violin solo : but not the “North Sydney pork barrel Pool”, or any of all the other examples?
His “balanced budgets” …. that never were?
His ‘fiduciary diligence in pandemic spending’? That thick outside re our $$$billions in JobKeeper to his donor mates in business that didn’t need it, that didn’t even qualify, let alone were monitored?
No mention of Robodebt by Sales? No Deves? No “aged care” history? No Macron? “AUKUS”?
The way he was able to play a dead bat to the “now and then” dismissal of arguments from his own side re “super to home buying”?
Blaming everyone else around the world for “inflation” – and ignoring the stagnation his government has championed as their economic model to “grow the economy”? Through to the Sales ‘keeper too.
The be all and end all “technology” that is carbon capture and storage – to get emissions down – unchallenged?
“Labor policies will force power prices up” : unlike Morrison’s fossil sponsored power policy?
“We had people winching people off rooves within hours of floods hitting”????
…. No reminder from Sales about “electorate colour coded flood relief packages” either?
…. All that “fire relief funding” (for ‘two’ years ago?) …. Where’s that now?
His excuses for the vaccine cock-up?
“We knew what China has been up to” – back-dooring the Solomons?
Great summation of Morrison’s ABC730 interview. And to think it was pre-recorded – he probably had the questions in advance (possibly even authorised them!) – and this was the best he could do! His bullying bulldozer style was on full display!
I watched the interview to see the tactics Ms Sales was going to use.Most of the points raised by Klewso have been critically examined elsewhere .So Sales’ tactic seemed to be ‘ask a question’ then let ‘him’ run off at the mouth (as usual). He couldn’t fob her off and then leave at a time of his choice : that wourld be childish. I am going to watch it again tonight with the ‘mute’ applied. It was a revealing interview in many ways.
Spell check ..would be childish.
AUKUS will be SQUAWKUS before we know it.
The cost for this AUKUS brain spasm runs into hundreds of billions, of which the subs are just the start, A whole new level of non-existent infrastructure is required to support them incl nuclear issues requiring decades to produce. If the real reason for dumping the French subs was the nuclear component, then the LNP seem to forget the basic French sub was already nuclear, with modified propulsion to suit our diesel electric requirement. As usual, the change to US subs makes no sense.
His people would have talked to her people pre the interview re purse strings.
“When ya gottem by the purse” eh?
I think that it is implied so no need for anything so obvious
Best example of “bulldozer” scummo was a Sat. Age cartoon.
It showed a scummo looking bull sleeping in an Australia shaped paddock, with floods,fires, covid.old age homes and other disasters going on elsewhere in the paddock.
nailed it for me, the “bull” typifying scummy and magnified by his sleeping through disasters
Or “hiding” from disasters – and situations of potentially bad PR?
“Morrison Mark I was tough and brash and rammed through, because that’s what the nation needed.”
And achieved nothing beyond announcements.
I’d also dispute that we needed someone to “ram” things through. We needed a leader.
I was also wondering about these purported attributes. Brash, yes or at least brass faced when it came to spouting lies and BS. Tough, well tough on the weak and vulnerable, so a tough bully then. And ramming things through? Well not bills, not reforms from Royal Commissions, certainly not defence procurements. Rorts and favours to vested interests, yes, Australia got these rammed right up them. I suppose the silver lining is that he has been so lazy and ineffectual that the cost of his time in office has been less than it could have been?