A one-man-band win would elevate Morrison to legend

Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: Gary Ramage

If Scott Morrison wins on Saturday, he will become a modern-day hero of the Liberal Party, even though at critical times during this campaign its existence has been denied and chunks of its history erased.

Several Liberal backbenchers have rebranded themselves; others­ have dropped the brand altogether. Often candid­ates find electoral success is best assured by putting space between them and the leader, or them and whichever party they belong to.

What is highly unusual, in this highly unusual campaign, is for the leader to distance himself from his own party. You needed binoculars to see the Liberal logo on the giant screen behind the Prime Minister at Sunday’s launch, and a GPS to find former leaders, deputies or stars of previous administrations. John Howard has crisscrossed the country tirelessly campaigning with candidates, yet still couldn’t score a seat at the main event.

Morrison’s single-minded ded­i­cation to the job at hand and single­-handed execution of it has succeeded in dragging the government back from oblivion. Because he has made the campaign all about himself, more so than any of his predecessors ever dared, if he wins he will have more authority over the government and the ­Liberal Party than even Howard did after he defeated Mark Latham in 2004. Morrison will both lead and control the government. But it will not be without its challenges.

Regardless of who wins, both the major parties will face something of an identity crisis.

If it’s the Liberals, as the euphor­ia begins to subside, they will wonder who they are, what they are and where Morrison will take them.

Just as Morrison remains a bit of an unknown quantity for voters, he is also something of an enigma for MPs who want to modernise the Liberal Party, to drag it into the 21st century, as well as for those determine­d to keep it as it was in the middle of the past century.

Morrison is deeply conservative, particularly on social issues. Bill Shorten’s below-the-Bible-belt bash at Morrison over his religion was an attempt to exploit an issue that has been simmering for months. Morrison vehemently oppose­d same-sex marriage, abstaine­d from voting in parliament even though his electorate voted for it, then early in his prime ministership committed to legislating for greater protections for religious freedom.

On Monday, he was asked if he still personally opposed same-sex marriage and he dodged it by saying­ he supported the law. In a follow-up, clearly referencing Israe­l Folau, he was asked if he believed gays would go to hell. Again he avoided answering. A simple “no” would have killed the story but he missed the opportunity. Maybe he misheard the question, maybe he was tired and slipped up, or maybe he didn’t want to get dragged into a theological debate.

The questions were a legitimate probing of Morrison’s views — particularly given the number of homophobic candidates preselected by the Liberals, coupled with concerns about the recruitment of the religious Right, especially in Victoria.

When Morrison gibed that Shorten should not allow himself to be filmed running in public, ­devout Catholic Kristina Keneally accused him of hypocrisy in a couple­ of sharp tweets because­ Morrison had invited cam­eras in to film him as he prayed inside his Pentecostal church on Easter Sunday (which I wrote at the time was a mistake by him).

People do have a right to know what drives their leaders; however, Shorten’s unprompted interven­tion was ham-fisted and sounded desperate. Morrison’s subsequent responses were appropriate but too late. By then the story was up and running.

When it comes to economic policy, Morrison is anything but a conservative free-marketeer — witness the bank levy he ­announced in his 2017 budget and the home deposit scheme he dropped on Sunday.

Coalition tensions, including over climate change and religious freedom, and questions about futur­e directions that have been suppressed by the campaign thanks to the sniff of victory, will bubble back up to the surface after the election, win or lose.

Liberals who still cluster around Tony Abbott remain deeply suspicious of Morrison, partly a hangover from the leadership wrangles of 2015 and last year. They hold him responsible — in part — for Abbott’s demise, then Peter Dutton’s failure to wrest the leadership from Malcolm Turn­bull­ last year, although how anybody thinks he could have saved Abbott from himself remain­s one of the unexplained mysteries of Australian politics. If Morrison wins, his task will be made easier if Abbott loses his seat. If Morrison loses narrowly and stays on as opposition leader, which he should, the monumental task of rebuilding also will be made easie­r if Abbott loses his seat.

Abbott, a fit 61, is fighting with all his might to hold Warringah. If he does, he has made his intentions clear, purportedly telling people: “If Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders can still be around in their late 70s, so can I.”

Few doubt Abbott’s desire to reclaim the leadership or to be restore­d to the frontbench, including lifelong Liberals in his electorate who cannot abide Shorten but who can no longer bring themselves to vote for Abbott, in what is largely a grassroots revolt against his policy positioning and his behaviour over the past three years.

Blaming GetUp or Zali Steggall or even this columnist may make it easier for the delcons to come to terms with his defeat — if it happen­s — but the fact is Abbott has no one to blame but himself for his predicament. Some say it’s karma, others that it’s reaping what you sow.

The disunity that produced three prime ministers in three years and the demise of the nationa­l energy guarantee, which when compared with the alter­natives on offer now seems as mild as a winter’s day, and which surely would have helped Abbott withstand an inevitable challenge, remain Shorten’s most potent argumen­ts against the Coalition.

If Shorten wins, it will prove yet again that unity trumps unpopularity, just as it did in 2013 when Abbott won. If Shorten loses, his political career will be over. There will be a fierce battle for the leadership (Chris Bowen, Anthony Alban­ese, Tanya Plibersek).

The new leader will have to set a new direction for the party. It’s difficult to see that Shorten’s soft social­ism will survive two election defeats.

It hasn’t worked for Jeremy Corbyn in Britain, nor has it worked for Bernie Sanders in the US, regardless of his longevity.