History will be kinder to Scott Morrison than some think

Scott Morrison’s contribution as prime minister will be acknowledged as substantial and far-reaching. Picture: Jason Edwards

When the history of the turbulent post-Howard-Rudd-Gillard-Rudd-Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison era is studied decades from now, Scott Morrison’s contribution as prime minister will be acknowledged as substantial and far-reaching. After 17 years as the member for Cook in the Sutherland Shire in southern Sydney, including four as prime minister, Mr Morrison will leave politics at the end of next month, triggering a by-election in his seat. Against the odds, after winning the Coalition leadership after the departure of Malcolm Turnbull in August 2018, Mr Morrison, in one of his major achievements, led the Coalition to victory in May 2019. In doing so, he saved the nation from then opposition leader Bill Shorten’s big-taxing, destructive economic platform.

Mr Morrison’s legacy in strategic policy, especially as the driving force behind the establishment of the AUKUS trilateral defence pact with the US and UK and his furthering the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between Australia, the US, Japan and India, make him well-qualified for his new role in global strategic advisory firms. AUKUS, Mr Morrison told political editor Simon Benson in an exclusive interview on Tuesday, is Australia’s “most significant defence agreement in 70 years”.

As the nation’s 30th prime minister, Mr Morrison, 55, was commendably forthright in denouncing China’s economic coercion and growing military dominance in Australia’s increasingly dangerous region. His sensible call for a proper inquiry into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan in 2020 drew China’s wrath. In response, China put Mr Morrison and his government into the deep freeze and imposed punitive sanctions on its import of Australian coal, wine, barley, seafood, cotton, timber and beef. Some of the sanctions, which had no justification and worked against the interests of the Chinese economy and people as well as Australia, are still in the process of being lifted. The experience was a salutary lesson in the importance of diversifying our export markets.

Mr Morrison’s time in office was punctuated by several failures of judgment, the most serious of which was secretly having himself sworn into five portfolios, including Treasury, health and home affairs during the pandemic, without any explicable reason. He did so without telling the nation or most of the ministers themselves, including former treasurer Josh Frydenberg. That unfortunate and unnecessary action will forever taint his legacy. In other ways, especially early on, Mr Morrison managed the pandemic well, with his early closure of the border from China and other international destinations credited with saving lives. His approach, initially, sent his popularity soaring. That standing was eroded, however, when the rollout of the vaccine program was inefficient and too slow.

But he and Mr Frydenberg were a formidable team in managing the economic fallout of the crisis. The JobKeeper scheme, while probably overgenerous in parts, salvaged the economy from potential disaster. It also set the nation up for record low unemployment, which has proven to be sustainable. In government, Labor has pointed the finger over the cost of the Coalition’s managing the pandemic in terms of increased debt. When it was in opposition, however, it urged the Morrison government to spend even more.

Scott Morrison and former Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

As prime minister and as a minister, Mr Morrison experienced the “slings and arrows’’ of outrageous fortune. As immigration minister in the Abbott government, he built his reputation for toughness and efficiency implementing the Coalition’s successful policy of offshore processing and turnbacks to stop the flow of asylum-seekers on people-smugglers’ boats. After Mr Turnbull was defeated for the Liberal leadership in his first term as prime minister, Mr Morrison was seen as a steady pair of hands when the party turned to him after Mr Turnbull’s departure. And so he was, for a time. Riding high after his 2019 election win, which he described as “a miracle’’, his sure-footed political judgment up to that point faltered during the bushfire crisis in the summer of that year, with his ill-fated family holiday to Hawaii.

Scott Morrison holidaying in Hawaii while bushfires burned across NSW.

On returning, he was on the backfoot, and his awkward responses, especially his infamous faux pas, “I don’t hold a hose’’, made the situation worse. He recovered during the pandemic but the latter part of his prime ministership was blighted, however unfairly, by the Brittany Higgins saga and claims of a political cover-up that proved baseless.

As Benson reports, Mr Morrison will join strategic and defence firms with former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former Trump security adviser Robert O’Brien. He will join Mr Pompeo as an adviser to asset management firm DYNE and has been appointed vice-chair of American Global Strategies, headed by Mr O’Brien, which focuses on US and Indo-Pacific strategic issues. Those enterprises will benefit from his vast experience, and we wish him well.