James Campbell: Prime Minister’s good and bad sides get an airing
PRIME Minister Scott Morrison has showcased his strengths and weaknesses within just a few days, but which will win out remains to be seen, writes James Campbell.
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THE GOOD and bad of Scott Morrison have been on display in the past few days as our new Prime Minister struggles to grab the nation’s attention. Faced with the Great Strawberry Crisis of 2018, Morrison leapt into action. Penalties for food tampering were immediately beefed up while the PM took to social media imploring the nation to immediately start eating the fruit again.
It was neatly done and reminded Labor that Morrison is a more direct and better communicator than Malcolm Turnbull.
PM BLASTS COUNCIL OVER AUSTRALIA DAY
BOLT: INDIGENOUS DAY ANOTHER PM MISTAKE
He was at it again on Tuesday, inserting himself into the story about the decision of the local council in Byron Bay to move its Australia Day event to January 25.
Of course Byron isn’t the first council in Australia to turn its back on January 26 — as you would expect that distinction belongs to our very own People’s Republic of Yarra — but it is the first council to do so in NSW, which makes it a big national story because for a large slice of the Sydney media, nothing is real until it happens in NSW.
Defending Australia Day is a no-brainer for a Liberal Prime Minister, just as going after it makes political sense for the leader of the Greens Party.
But for the Labor Party this “debate” is all bad. Most of its members — the real ones that is, not the stacks — probably agree with Richard Di Natale “that for so many people the date that we celebrate Australia Day is a day of hurt, of suffering, of pain and we will never have a day that brings this nation together if we continue to celebrate it on the date that represents the loss of land for our Aboriginal brothers and sisters”.
You can tell how uncomfortable that makes the ALP from the fact that the best deputy leader Tanya Plibersek could come up with as an endorsement for the holiday was a restatement that “it’s very clear that most Australians back Australia Day remaining on the 26th of January and certainly it’s Labor’s position that Australia Day should remain on the 26th of January”.
Like his intervention in the strawberry crisis Morrison’s opinion piece was a reminder that he has knack of making direct argument in plain language: “Australia Day is not about a flag being raised in Farm Cove. It’s the day we celebrate all Australians, all their stories, all their journeys. It is a day for us to come together.
“We do this on January 26, because that was the day that Australia changed forever.
Before that day there were 60,000 years of indigenous history. After that day, our land was set on the course to the modern Australia we know and love today.
“We can’t pretend there was some other day more profound than this. That would be dishonest. We’d be kidding ourselves and we’d also be selling ourselves short.”
This was good stuff. The trouble came from a line near the end where he said, “I also believe we need to honour and acknowledge in our national calendar our Indigenous Peoples”.
But doesn’t he understand that’s a no-no for a large slice of his “base”?
WITHIN hours of the piece running, Tony Abbott was on the blower from a remote community in the Northern Territory pointing out “we’ve already got things like NAIDOC week and National Sorry Day and so on”.
The walk back began almost immediately: “I haven’t said it’s a public holiday or not a public holiday,” he told the ABC.
That’s technically true of course, but he did raise the idea in a piece about the Australia Day holiday so we could perhaps have been forgiven for thinking that was what he meant. Seizing on a minor error or misrepresentation and using it to ram home an advantage is a trick Morrison often deploys against journalists.
He was at it again on Wednesday dodging questions about the leaked email from ABC chairman Justin Milne asking for the sacking of Emma Alberici.
“Well you’re talking about reports the veracity of which have not been established,” he told reporters.
“I’m not aware of him actually having confirmed any of these things. So people are making some allegations at the moment, but what the facts are, I still think is a little unclear.”
If those reports are confirmed, does that mean ….
“Well I don’t get into hypotheticals, I don’t get into hypotheticals.”
The journalist ploughed on: “I understand they are accurate though.”
Morrison was having none of it: “Well, you understand that. There’s nothing before me, I haven’t seen the actual email or it’s veracity or anything like that.”
That Morrison doesn’t care for media folk hardly makes him unique of course. Nor does the fact he doesn’t care who knows it.
But even so, watching him at press conferences, it is surprising how aggressive and contemptuous of the press he can be. Last week he began his answer to a question about his rollover on Catholic schools funding: “Well, I’m not surprised you have a very cynical view about this.”
This wouldn’t matter if his contempt for the opinions of others was confined to the press. But if you talk to some of his colleagues, they have similar stories to tell.
Whether the Liberal Party can keep this side of its leader from revealing itself to the pubic over the next nine months will be interesting to see.
James Campbell is national politics editor
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