Coronavirus: Stubborn yet supple, Morrison pivots at crisis speed

Scott Morrison in his office at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Adam Taylor

Whatever Scott Morrison’s faults as a person and as a politician, and he has a few, next to Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, our Prime Minister looks like Churchill. OK, maybe not Churchillian, maybe a little Howardesque.

Whatever the faults of Australia’s system of government, parliament, or major parties, and there are a few, they leave the American and British models for dead. After almost four years, Trump’s America is light years away from being great again, thanks to life now aping the worst science-fiction book or movie imaginable.

If you dare in these gloomy times, check out Escape from New York, released in 1981 and set in 1997. Its star, Kurt Russell, once boasted it provided the template for every dark successor, including Blade Runner. A minor digression, except it serves as a reminder of the sorry state of many US cities today, particularly the Big Apple, as they struggle to cope with crimes, guns, gangs and now an epidemic.

With Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders in hibernation, Trump has no real opposition except himself, presiding lamely over the new epicentre of COVID-19, letting his people down repeatedly with false information and tardy prepar­ation.

Donald Trump has let down his people with false information and tardy prepar­ation. Picture: AP

In Britain, where the new Lab­our leader to replace Jeremy Corbyn is scheduled to be announced on Saturday, four months after the election, Johnson hasn’t failed as badly, but after tempting the gods by making light of COVID-19, fell victim to it. There is no deputy prime minister and his government is reportedly in chaos.

One of Morrison’s defining characteristics is stubbornness. He doesn’t give in easily. Nor does he give up. Nor does he have a reput­ation for consensus building.

Yet faced with this potentially soul-destroying, nation-destroying threat, he has relented at critical points to do things he said he wouldn’t and that no centre-right ­government would ever contemplate. John Howard defied his natural constituency to toughen gun laws. Morrison has done it with $130bn to pay the workers.

The fact that he has never fitted neatly, philosophically and ideologically speaking, into any Liberal faction, wet or dry, spender or slasher, has meant Morrison is extremel­y flexible, except for his deep social conservatism.

His ability to pivot at lightning speed, as if he had been planning a U-turn all along, has hopefully rescued­ Australia from depression and possibly safeguarded his prime ministership. We won’t know for sure for a while, except he will need that nimbleness during the days of reckoning which will follow.

But if the latest package restores­ some confidence, saves six million or even three million people from unemployment, and helps prevent a breakdown of civil society, it will be a job well done and worth every cent of the cost.

A couple of weeks ago, Morrison was saying be careful what you wish for, when Daniel Andrews and Gladys Berejiklian were pushing for shutdowns. Confronted with a revolt which threatened his control of the national cabinet, he surrendered. Early indications are that stricter quarantining is working, with a lower infection rate.

Only days ago, in the face of pressure from Labor, the unions, business, and the media, Morrison was dismissive of wage subsidies, insisting Australia would not follow­ Britain.

On Sunday he tersely dismissed questions about Labor’s criticisms of government tardiness in bringing Australians home, and had already put parliament into recess until August. Next day he announced regular dialogue with Anthony Albanese and that parliament would be recalled as soon as possible to pass the wage ­subsidy rescue package, adapted for Australia. Call it any name you like, it is still a rose.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson chairs Britain’s COVID-19 meeting remotely after testing positive for the coronavirus. Picture: AP

Albanese has both a right and an obligation (as does the media) to critique the government’s actions­ and to offer alternatives. He sounded sulky when he complained about being left out of the national cabinet, however, his pursui­t of wage subsidies and other measures was warranted.

Life-and-death decisions are being made, under incredible pressure­, every day. No one leader can hope to get it right every time, particularly when normal processes have been disrupted with civil liberties erased by the day, so alternative views have to be considered and proper scrutiny applied.

Committed to doing whatever it takes, Morrison and Josh Frydenberg have worked hard to find that middle road, the one that kills the virus without killing the economy. Later, people may not remembe­r if they were days or weeks late with this or that measur­e. They will look at how the health system coped, mourn the dead, count the number of businesses lost and how many people remain unemployed.

The pieces will not go back togethe­r the same way, not here and not across the globe. Many things will have to be done differently as debt continues to be loaded on to the grandchildren of your grandchildren, if you have any.

Governments will have to look afresh at what we make, how we live, then how, eventually, we pay for these six months. Which ­government, which leader in the foreseeable future has the stomach to lay that out.

Morrison announced last week that businessman Neville­ Power would head the team to co-ordin­ate the fight against the virus. His next step should be to announce a team outside his own cabinet — which has been subordinated during­ this ­crisis, except for the Treasurer and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann — to co-ordin­ate the recovery. It is already exercising the better minds inside the government with suggestions it should be headed by someone such as the former governor of the Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens.

High-calibre businessmen such as Andrew Liveris and Tony Shepherd have also been thinking, talking and writing about it.

A central part of that debate, and a devilishly difficult one, will be Australia’s relationship with China. The coronavirus could have come from anywhere, but it did originate in Wuhan.

Once a vaccine is found and people begin to relax on the health front, discussion of Australia’s dependenc­e on China and its ownership of Australian assets will explode­. It was running before, simmers now, and is guaranteed to turn red hot after, stoked, without doubt, by a rampant Trump.