Is a PM with substance too much to ask for?

TALKING about footy or wearing an old leather jacket is all well and good, but what Australians really need is a return to the political style of leaders long forgotten, writes Terry Sweetman.

IT might be a distressing thought for the politically ambitious, but the last Australian prime minister to leave office under his own steam was Sir Robert Menzies more than half a century ago.

Every one to leave office since has been defeated at a general election, rolled by his or her own party or, in the case of Harold Holt, drowned (or possibly spirited away in a Chinese submarine).

That’s a total of 13 prime ministers, counting Kevin Rudd twice because he spectacularly managed to be knifed by the Labor Party party and to be resurrected only to lead it into inglorious defeat.

John Howard, of course, scored a notable double by taking his government to defeat and losing his own seat.

Scott Morrison is yet to make his mark in this dismal historic ledger.

Menzies’ retirement, on January 22, 1966, was memorable for a question from a reporter who asked whether he “rode the wave during your term rather than controlled it” and further confused the moment by mentioning the “tiger’s back” and the “Australian quarry” theories.

The great man found the question “somewhat incoherent, but fascinating”.

“If you’re asking me whether I’ve been a good surfer I can say ‘no’. The only time I ever stood in the surf on a Sydney beach I was hit by a dumper and had to go and have my face attended to afterwards,’’ he said.

Bob Hawke and his infamous jacket. (Pic: Gregg Porteous)

This was an occasion of much amusement and was shared with the nation in a historic TV broadcast.

It was doubly amusing because the idea of the portly and pompous Menzies frolicking in his Speedos was beyond imagination.

(I once came across his wife, Dame Pattie, skirts tucked into her bloomers, wading in the surf at Batemans Bay with their grandchildren but that’s another story.)

This was a simple time when prime ministers and others in public life largely valued their personal and professional dignity and their family privacy.

And it was a time when politicians were largely judged on what they stood for rather than how they jumped through media hoops.

With the mild exception of Holt, who introduced spearfishing and bikini-clad stepdaughters to the cameras, our prime ministers were a pretty dour bunch.

John Gorton played the blokey role and McMahon was just laughable rather than amusing.

Witty but waspish Gough Whitlam just wasn’t one for back-slappery and Malcolm Fraser, well just forget it.

The relationship between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd was one of the most tense moments in political history. (Pic: News Corp)

A taste of the future came with Bob Hawke and his hideous America’s Cup jacket but we really had to wait for the arrival of Tony Abbott and his serial stunts for the clowns to completely take over the circus.

Rudd made a valiant attempts at blokiness with his clumsy “fair suck of the sauce bottle” atrocities and Julia Gillard made an ill-advised pitch for the sewing circle with an Australian Women’s Weekly spread.

However, I don’t think either was ever put to the test of naming an AC/DC song.

Yet that the was the much publicised question put to Malcolm Turnbull who was, even then, up to his armpits in political crocodiles.

It was an occasion for derision as scornful as when he paddled his canoe on Sydney Harbour without a lifejacket.

Riding public trains and favouring a well-loved leather jacket really didn’t do too much to alter the image of Mr Harbourside Mansion.

But now we have Morrison, the latest prime minister to try to remake his image and to shake hands with the Australian public.

After 11 years of serving as Prime Minister, John Howard lost the election and his seat in 2007. (Pic: supplied)

His pitch has come in the form of touch football in a body-hugging guernsey and pulling on a baseball cap instead of the almost obligatory Akubra when schmoozing our country cousins.

(A cautionary note is that Barnaby Joyce was a big touch footy guy but it didn’t do him a lot of good.)

In his first weeks in the job, Morrison has managed to supply nightly folksy imagery for the TV screens.

Can he keep it up? Who cares?

I guess the small-screen taste for gimmickry is insatiable, but I suspect stunts might have just about run their race with a weary voting public.

There are serious issues facing our nation, our environment, our economy, our financial services, our collective moral compass and our very political system.

They demand serious responses from our politicians, including Bill Shorten and his dad jokes dressed up as “zingers”.

Politics is about people, but in that dimension it has descended into the frivolous, the cynical, and sometimes the patently insincere.

There is a faint hope — probably a vain hope — that the accession of Morrison will put an end to our revolving door leadership.

There might be hope — probably equally vain — that we can expect a little less style and a lot more substance from those who lead or aspire to lead our nation.

Seriously.

Terry Sweetman is a columnist for The Courier-Mail.

@Terrytoo69