Federal election 2019: James Weir recaps Scott Morrison’s bombshell win

In a night of bombshells, it wasn’t ScoMo’s win that had Australia confused. It was a certain C-word he blurted out in his victory speech.

James Weir

@hellojamesweir

6 min read

May 19, 2019 - 2:34PM

How did the Coalition win the unwinnable election?

Australia thought Scott Morrison’s poll-defying victory against Bill Shorten was the bombshell of a punishing election night, until the Prime Minister quoted a ’70s soul-funk novelty hit in his victory speech and dropped a C-word none of us were expecting.

It was the end to a long and weary night and concluded an exhausting 38-day campaign. Weariness makes you crazy and it can be blamed for a lot of things last night. Like Julie Bishop operating a giant holograph machine that allowed her to kick Tony Abbott in the face with a computer-generated shoe. More context will be provided on this soon but it still won’t make sense.

Weariness was also to blame for ScoMo’s BMW being chased down several levels of a Wilson underground carpark in Sydney CBD by a media pack, thus forcing the PM to pay exorbitant overnight rates. No one can afford overnight carpark rates.

Indeed, a lot of things about election night confused and shocked.

“I believe in miracles,” our Prime Minister said in his midnight victory speech, clearly reciting the lyrics to the 1975 soul-funk hit You Sexy Thing by Hot Chocolate.

It’s at this point we were waiting for Jenny to scream the, “Where you from?” bit and then all the nerds in the crowd to chant, “You sexy thing!”

But it seems the use of the novelty song was an impromptu choice because everyone missed their cue and Scott was forced to power on. He was so thrown by his party’s incompetence at not engaging in the call and response that he went and dropped a C-word.

“To my own team and staff, can I thank The Cunk,” he stumbled, before correcting himself. “John Kunkel, my chief of staff.”

OK, so we were all sitting around our living rooms and eating cold democracy sausages when ScoMo growled “The Cunk”. And on the TV, it kinda sounded like something … different. To be honest, I’m not sure “The Cunk” is much better than the other name it sounds like.

’He’s a mad Cunk!’

“How good is Australia?” our re-elected prime minister continued, trying to again convince us he’s just a regular knockabout bloke. Yes, Australia is good. Lots of things are good but we don’t feel the need to say it. How good is eating a whole sleeve of double-coated Tim Tams and then falling asleep with the lights on? It’s bloody good but we all know it is — we don’t need our prime minister reiterating such logic.

The riveting seven hours of televised election coverage got off to slow start and for, like, two hours, the only real takeaway was that Channel 9’s Deb Knight looked dewy and was wearing a fabulous pink power blazer.

There’s no reason we can’t be both informed and stylish.

People get so funny these days when you compliment a woman’s looks instead of the Very Serious Job she’s doing. “YOU WOULDN’T SAY THAT ABOUT A MAAAAAAN!” they shriek.

And I absolutely would say that about a man. I’ll even say it right now. Alan Jones was also wearing a fabulous power blazer.

You just don’t see an eye-catching blazer like this every day.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say his skin was dewy because Alan is like a really old table at an antiques store — if you blew on him, a cloud of dust would billow up into your face and you’d experience a severe sneezing fit and then the table would probably screech an outdated and offensive opinion at you.

Interestingly, drawing comparisons to an old dusty table is something you absolutely couldn’t say about a woman. But we’re here for federal politics, not gender politics so stop trying to trip me up with sensitive issues.

Over on Channel 7, something wasn’t quite right with Sam and Kochie.

I can’t put my finger on it.

Julie Bishop was the star of Channel 9’s coverage and she was loving life. At one point, she sang and sway-danced to Doris Day’s Que Sera Sera and I don’t know what exactly provoked her to do that but sometimes you don’t need a reason to belt out old timey showtunes during election coverage.

She even wore black for Tony Abbott’s funeral.

’RIP bitch.’

Let’s talk about Tony. He was the first major person to lose but he used the loss to create chaos during his concession speech. Somehow, he managed to turn his loss into a win and was the first one to make the call that it was a Coalition victory. This was an hour into counting and there was still a long way to go but we all believed him and he was right.

Tony lost his seat of Warringah to independent Zali Steggall and, up the road at her victory party, she was giving a speech filled with the kind of wisdom that really just makes you stop and take stock.

“This day started this morning,” she told the crowd.

It’s the kind of profound quote you’d expect from the Dalai Lama or a Lorna Jane tank top.

It’s also worth noting that former VJ, Australian Idol host and one-time Tony opponent James Mathison came out of retirement to be Zali’s hype man at her victory party. When cameras cut to see her speech, we saw him on stage amping up the crowd. What a blast from the past.

“Oh … that’s that, ah, guy? That … James. He hosted that, ah, funny show?” Nine’s Peter Overton stumbled. We forgave his confusion as we too were confused by what James was doing.

It’s like, if three years from now, you saw Hamish Blake working in the Coles deli. It just wouldn’t make sense.

But things not making sense is the theme of election night. And Julie Bishop was more than happy to contribute to the confusion.

Back at Channel 9, the former foreign minister was on a roll. We’d all been looking forward to seeing the shade she’d throw at her former colleagues and she really delivered. For some reason, her iconic red stilettos had been turned into a giant computer-generated holograph machine that could be used to kick a 3D animation of Tony Abbott’s head.

We then had the pleasure of watching her operate the weird cartoon shoe machine and smash Tony’s face to pieces. Like I said, it doesn’t matter how much context is provided, this will never make sense.

#BREAKING Julie Bishop kicks Tony Abbott out of Parliament. @9NewsAUS #AusVotes19 #auspol pic.twitter.com/6V05CMg43K
— Airlie Walsh (@AirlieWalsh) May 18, 2019

Over on ABC, News Breakfast host Michael Rowland was relegated to operating the network’s own violent holograph machine and all we’ll say is Virginia’s lucky she got out when she did.

“The political wheel of fortune!” Michael was forced to say as he pretended to spin a computer-generated wheel of candidates’ faces. “It’s a bit like democracy roulette,” he added before later branding it a “carousel of carnage” as giant crosses were lashed through the faces of the losing candidates.

Obviously delirium was setting in. Everyone’s favourite family man Barnaby Joyce kept his New England seat and he made his jubilance eloquently known.

Thanks for the contribution, Barnaby.

And, despite spending $80 million on his campaign, Clive Palmer won no seats but still tried to take credit when it was eventually announced the Scott Morrison had won. Now would’ve been the perfect opportunity to use Julie Bishop’s weird holograph shoe to kick Clive in the face, repeatedly.

It was nearing midnight. This madness had to end. Scott was hanging out at Kirribilli House with Jenny and the girls and jumped in a waiting BMW to hightail it across the bridge to Liberal HQ at the Sofitel in the city.

But when he pulled up at the entrance to get out, all the cameras swarmed. Suddenly, ScoMo went from prime minister to annoying backseat-driver dad. He started yelling last minute directions at the driver and the BMW kangaroo-hopped past the entrance before taking a wrong turn into a Wilson carpark.

In live footage, we then watched Scott as he screamed at the driver from the back seat as they rolled into the darkness. We had nothing better to do, so we all chased him down several concrete ramps to the bottom level of the underground carpark.

“He’s really in the bowels of the car park,” a perplexed Julie Bishop observed on Nine. “Did they not reserve him a park?”

You’d bloody think so. We don’t want our tax payer dollars going to ridiculous overnight car park fees.

Meanwhile, Bill Shorten was down in Melbourne giving his loser speech to a bunch of crying supporters while he stood next to a random Qantas flight attendant.