Return to gender: Christine Holgate saga a tripwire for PM

Scott Morrison in Parliament last October when he said he was appalled by Ms Holgate’s decision to reward four Australia Post executives with Cartier watches. Picture: AAP

There was a moment a couple of weeks ago when even Scott Morrison’s Labor opponents felt sorry for him.

It was the day he declared Marise Payne was the “prime minister for women”. Poor bugger, they thought, can’t take a trick. It was the latest in a long string of gaffes by Morrison, each one showing despite the fact he is the son of one, the husband of another and the ­father of two, he was struggling to work out how to talk to or about women.

That moment, the one where they pitied rather than feared or respected or reviled him, passed quickly. Morrison should, in a sense, be grateful for that because as soon as people, especially those trying to get rid of you, start feeling sorry for you, then it really is the beginning of the end.

Public perceptions of prime ministers go through stages. They begin with optimism. Everything feels possible.

They subside to tolerance. He, or she, is doing their best. It slumps to disappointment. Maybe their best just isn’t good enough.

After a succession of mishaps, people begin to feel sympathy. Pretty soon that turns to anger, ­especially if the mishaps are self-inflicted and the politician begins to look hopelessly incompetent. Rejection sets like concrete and leaders, no matter how popular they once were, get smashed.

In politics there is no such thing as a pity vote.

Morrison is in a dangerous place. It’s not only because the vaccination rollout is going badly, so badly he has been forced to bring the states in to help him out of the quicksand, showing once again that it’s the premiers and chief ministers who have done the heavy lifting during this crisis.

Equally troubling is his regular rewriting of history to get himself out of a jam precipitated by another jam he foolishly engineered. And that is putting it kindly. Whether it’s responding fulsomely to Kate Jenkins’s key recommendations on workplace safety — some of which were accepted only in part, others merely “noted” — or trumpeting the “securing” of vaccines not due for months and that may never arrive, repeated promises of transparency trigger suspicion. It’s a clue to check the fine print.

First Australia was in the front of the queue, then it slipped towards the back of the queue, now there is no queue, no timetable and no targets. All too hard.

All politicians tweak or bend the truth occasionally. With Morrison it is getting chronic. It’s a serious handicap, especially if trust, constancy or judgment are your foundation pillars for re-election.

Consider the treatment of Christine Holgate, who has joined an ever-expanding list of courageous women who have dealt Morrison potentially lethal blows. News that Holgate had spent a piddling $20,000 on Cartier watches to reward four executives who had negotiated multi-million-dollar contracts for Australia Post with the banks propelled Morrison into a stupid over-reaction, courtesy of a Labor sting.

Christine Holgate appears before the Senate inquiry.

Morrison told parliament on October 22 he was “appalled” and it was “disgraceful”, adding: “If the chief executive wishes to stand aside, well not wishes to stand aside, she’s been instructed to stand aside and if she doesn’t wish to do that, Mr Speaker, she can go.”

Those last three menacing words ensured Holgate was done for. Australia Post should have said thanks for the advice, Prime Minister, but no thanks.

That also would have taken courage but would have saved everyone, including Morrison, a lot of heartache, and would have spared Holgate a horrendous professional and personal ordeal.

Contrast Morrison’s reaction to Holgate to that when he was asked if companies should return to taxpayers the millions in overpayments they had received from JobKeeper, which they put to profits or executive bonuses. Morrison said he wasn’t into “the politics of envy”. Could have fooled me.

Unbelievably, last week he pretended Holgate’s departure from Australia Post was voluntary. Like it had nothing to do with him. On Wednesday, still refusing to say sorry, he said he hadn’t meant to cause her distress. Again, could have fooled me. Any wonder it is becoming impossible to take his remarks at face value.

Technically it was true, but much of what he says these days sounds like Humpty Dumpty lecturing Alice on the meaning of words, which eventually ended very badly for the egg.

This debacle could have been fixed at any point if Morrison had apologised, then sought Holgate’s reinstatement. That option ended with the announcement of a replacement chief executive the day before she fronted the Senate inquiry. It was a calculated two-fingered salute to critics and senators, including the two Nationals, Bridget McKenzie and Matt Canavan. All the Prime Minister’s worst traits, as articulated by those who have dealt with him — his stubbornness, his bullying, his fibbing, his fudging — have been laid bare by this sequence of amateur-hour events unworthy of the office.

Maybe there was a touch of sexism, as Holgate claimed — which Morrison denies, saying it had nothing to do with her gender; rather it was all about taxpayer money spent on Cartier watches — or maybe there were hidden agendas involving plans to change Australia Post operations that would have seen the sacking of thousands.

More likely it was political opportunism. An all-powerful Prime Minister stooping to such petty politics to extinguish what should have been a one-day wonder — then compounding the offence by digging in — is, to use his own words, appalling and disgraceful.

Holgate’s decision to fight back, including by taking legal action as she foreshadowed to Laura Tingle on the ABC’s 7.30, has guaranteed Morrison will pay a huge price for his hubris.

Another high-profile court case involving even more ministers — maybe himself expanding on his “instructions” to the portfolio ministers, Simon Birmingham and Paul Fletcher, to have Holgate stood aside or removed — is exactly what he doesn’t need.

Earlier this year, journalists and even his own MPs scoffed when Anthony Albanese likened himself to newly elected US President Joe Biden. Fewer people are laughing at Sleepy Albo now.

On Thursday, Albanese will announce Labor’s candidate for the Queensland seat of Flynn, where the LNP’s Ken O’Dowd is retiring. O’Dowd’s two-party preferred vote was almost 59 per cent in 2019, so you would think it’s fairly safe for the government, even if it loses a few percentage points because of O’Dowd’s personal vote.

Except Labor’s candidate will be the mayor of Gladstone, Matt Burnett, who won last year’s local election race with 73 per cent of the vote, securing roughly 23,000 votes against the 8000 of his opponent. That is a solid base to build on. It doesn’t mean all is lost for Morrison. It does mean he has to stay sharp and true. If he is incapable, then sorry, but I will not be sorry. And if anyone thinks this sentiment was devised by me for Morrison, check the archives for my columns on Julia Gillard.