’My listeners complain that Scott Morrison is a bland, say-nothing Treasurer... and he won’t be missed’

RAY HADLEY offers some pretty direct feedback to Treasurer Scott Morrison after his guest missed his regular radio slot - and turned up on the ABC instead.

The bromance is over: Ray Hadley is hugely unimpressed with Scott Morrison, with whom he is pictured at a Glenn Wheeler fundraiser last year, ‘dudding’ him for the ABC.

• Ray Hadley sprays Sco-Mo over no-show

THERE has been a lot of commentary around Treasurer Scott Morrison and his refusal to appear on my radio program this morning, supposedly because he was on the road.

Last week I had a call from Morrison’s staff saying that the Treasurer would be unavailable to appear in his usual spot on my program Monday morning as he would be travelling and could not make the spot.

But as I was about to announce that Morrison wouldn’t be able to join me because he was on the road, word came to me that he was on the radio with the ABC’s Jon Faine in Melbourne instead!

Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison speaks at Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute in Melbourne today. Picture: AAP Image/Julian Smith

Well, good luck to him is what I say.

When he was Minister for Immigration, and later Minister for Social Services, Scott Morrison did a great job. He was a very strong advocate for what he believed in, made the government’s case well, and he got things done.

Now I get that Treasurers have to watch their words.

But the feedback I get is that he won’t be missed by my listeners.

For the past 12 months, every time I’ve had him on I’ve copped a torrent of emails from listeners complaining that Morrison, who used to have something worthwhile to say, has become a bland, say-nothing Treasurer.

What’s more, even though Malcolm Turnbull justified knifing Tony Abbott because of 30 bad Newspolls, Morrison would never engage with straightforward questions about his own government’s performance.

The worst was after the last Newspoll, when Morrison didn’t have a credible answer for how he could on the one hand bag Bill Shorten out up hill and down dale and on the other see Shorten keep drawing closer to Turnbull in the preferred PM stakes.

It was getting pretty tedious, to be honest.

If Morrison wants to align himself with the ABC and try and capture left-wing voters in Sydney and Melbourne in the hope they’ll vote for the Coalition at the next election, good luck to him.

And if he wants to go on the ABC and dud me, the decision is simple, he’s not on the show any more.