How did the Coalition get hijacked by a two-bit shyster?
Clive Palmer was a corrosive and destructive force in national politics and he shouldn’t be given an easy ride back in, writes Dennis Atkins. Bill Shorten was clever to jump on this point.
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It’s said an election campaign provides an MRI of the soul for the combatants when challengers pit themselves against each other.
So far we’ve seen some interesting imaging from the 2019 federal election.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has surprised people by managing to put one foot in front of the other, day in, day out. He hasn’t tripped over himself, which has been the record of the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison Coalition effort since they were elected 5½ years ago.
Morrison has been rewarded for this better-than-expected performance – he’s scored good marks for just showing up.
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Bill Shorten entered the campaign as the front runner, which is a handicap in itself.
While Morrison has been given an easy ride because he’s the underdog who no one thought was going to win, Shorten has been put under greater pressure than he’s had to feel during those 5½ years he’s been Labor Leader.
Morrison has responded well. He has honed a message that is disciplined and – annoyingly for those paying attention – repetitive.
Because he hasn’t had to feel the fire of hard-edged scrutiny, Morrison has been given the full run of the field.
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Shorten has felt this fire and not responded well. He has fumbled his answers – one on superannuation policy and another on tax – and he has looked cranky now and then.
On Monday night, these leaders met head to head for the first time, not just in this election campaign but at any time.
In the first half of the debate, the Prime Minister was too scripted. He repeated those lines we have heard every day at his media conferences, and it made him sound hollow.
Shorten put forward something that hadn’t been too much on display in the first two weeks of the campaign – he sounded like a politician of conviction.
He threw the otherwise thorny question of what his plan for reducing carbon emissions will cost by reminding everyone of the cost of other corporate messes that needed to be cleaned up, whether it was the aftermath of a smelter or some other business “cost”.
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Switching to wages – the strongest ground for Shorten – was the turning point, handily swinging in at the halfway mark.
Morrison’s message on wages, especially penalty rates, was soon lost in word salad, and he wasn’t helped by the return of his unattractive smirk.
Morrison was rescued by a shift to discussing border protection which is, more than anything, the PM’s signature policy and greatest achievement.
The worst part of the debate was the inexplicable black hole of franked credits for the top slice of self-managed super-fund holders.
Sadly, Shorten decided to deflect criticism of his franking credit plan by returning the smirk. We had a quickly organised smirk off.
The real sharp focus arrived with the campaign jester, Clive Palmer.
Shorten was able to throw in the word that will score him big points with his campaign team – chaos.
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He posed a fundamental question that is more of a conundrum. How the hell did the Coalition allow itself to be hijacked by a two-bit shyster like Palmer?
He bedevilled Australian politics when he was the Member for Fisher – hardly ever turning up to Parliament, and snoozing in his well-upholstered seat when he was there.
His three senators couldn’t agree among themselves and they split into smaller and smaller factions.
Palmer was a corrosive and destructive force in national politics and he shouldn’t be given an easy ride back in.
He’s buying his way to the starting gates and the preference deal the Coalition has handed him without care or consideration will turn that into a rails run, especially in the Senate.
If Monday night’s debate was an MRI for this campaign, the imaging was not pretty. It was the big, yellow shrouded man from Queensland who is in it not for the national interest, but for self interest.
Dennis Atkins is The Courier-Mail’s national affairs editor.
Don’t miss Dennis Atkins and Malcolm Farr’s politics podcast Two Grumpy Hacks, available free on iTunes or Soundcloud.
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