Why is Scott Morrison backing the language police?

There is something amiss when the government suggests that we suddenly need to all start playing language police, writes James Morrow.

When did Scott Morrison become David Morrison?

Anyone who paid close attention to the Prime Minister’s press conference with Attorney-General Michaelia Cash might have asked the question when the two started talking about, well, the way we talk.

Apparently we’re not supposed to say “don’t chuck like a girl” anymore, according to Ms Cash.

“Do not say it,” she said.

The Prime Minister went further, telling a touching story of a couple working on their wokeness down at the local sporting ground.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announcing the government would adopt all recommendations of the Respect@Work report at Parliament House. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

“I was recently at a game and there was an older couple sitting next to me watching the game. I heard something the husband said to the wife about what she had said, and he said, ‘We can’t say that anymore.’”

Assuming the husband was not being ironic, why is a conservative prime minister backing in the sort of language policing that would not be out of place on a bonkers woke university campus in the US?

Look, we can all agree that sexual harassment is a bad thing, women often get a raw deal, and that a lot of the changes the prime minister put forward like making it easier to fire bad actors in the workplace are undoubtedly long overdue.

Michaelia Cash, Attorney-General, during the press conference today. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

But there is something amiss when the government suggests that we suddenly need to all start playing language police, implying that anyone who is guilty of using unapproved language somehow bears responsibility for the scourge of domestic violence or harassment or rape.

While entirely well-intentioned, such campaigns always wind up an exercise in collective guilt that, perversely, gives perpetrators an out: It was the culture wot made me do it!

And they come from the same brain space that believes that if we could only ban Grand Theft Auto, car theft would disappear overnight.

It’s all a bit reminiscent of former Army chief David Morrison’s widely ridiculed campaign a few years back to stop people saying the g-word (“guys”) and led a fearless campaign to stamp out signs in office kitchens that read, “Clean up after yourself! Your mum doesn’t work here!

Let’s focus on the real problems, please, and leave the language policing to the left.