Senator’s scathing attack on her PM is a gift for Labor

Exiting Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has let rip on Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Parliament House. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

NSW Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells’s bitter character assassination of her Prime Minister as a bully, not fit for the job, lacking a moral compass and having no conscience, captures Scott Morrison’s political dilemma at the looming election.

The attack from Fierravanti-Wells on Tuesday night in the Senate, about an hour after the budget was handed down by Josh Frydenberg, undercuts the government’s narrative as it attempts to sell its $8.6bn cost-of-living package and is another example of party disunity.

It also deepens the political rift over the outstanding Liberal candidate selections in a raft of key NSW seats by elevating Morrison as a central figure responsible for the delay, with Fierravanti-Wells accusing him of running protection for close ally Alex Hawke and threatening the government’s re-election in the process.

Fierravanti-Wells has long been a critic of Morrison, but her intervention is a gift for Labor after Anthony Albanese spent the past two weeks fending off allegations Victorian Labor senator Kimberley Kitching was being bullied by her colleagues before her unexpected death.

It also distracts from his own factional issues, including turmoil over parachuting Kristina Keneally into Fowler over local candidate Tu Le and former Kevin Rudd adviser Andrew Charlton into the seat of Parramatta being vacated by Julie Owens.

In seven of his eight interviews on Wednesday morning to sell the budget, the Prime Minister was forced to respond to Fierravanti-Wells’s accusations. Weeks out from polling day, he is struggling for clear air to sell his economic message. He remains hostage to an entrenched public perception that he is untrustworthy. His problem during the past two years has been his failure to transform his achievements in economic and pandemic management into a political advantage over the Opposition Leader.

The economy is booming, unemployment is on track to reach 3.75 per cent, commodity prices are expanding government revenues and Morrison is planning to produce a $103bn total improvement to the budget bottom line by 2025-26. These are impressive results. But are people listening?

Labor has cut through with its attack on Morrison’s character even though it has yet to propose a significantly different economic platform. Albanese has strung together a series of Morrison missteps ranging from the Prime Minister’s trip to Hawaii during the Black Summer bushfires, his response to the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins in Parliament House and his characterisation by French President Emmanuel Macron as a liar to frame Morrison as deceitful in the public mind. Even Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce was caught out calling Morrison a “hypocrite and a liar” in leaked messages sent when he was a backbencher last year.

Fierravanti-Wells is a longstanding and almost professional critic of Morrison. This must weaken the credibility of her attack. Its bitterness and exaggeration was self-defeating. Her public assessment of Morrison was a scorched earth, take-no-prisoners assault on his integrity as a human being and a politician. It was fuelled by resentment at having failed to secure a winnable spot on the NSW Senate ticket and a desire to settle scores.

The list of complaints against Morrison dated back years, including his entry into parliament in 2007, with Fierravanti-Wells attacking his conduct during the preselection contest for Cook where he ran off against Michael Towke. “He is adept at running with the foxes and hunting with the hounds, lacking a moral compass and having no conscience,” she said. “His actions conflict with his portrayal as a man of faith. He has used his so-called faith as a marketing advantage.”

She warned Morrison and Hawke were responsible for the crisis playing out in the NSW division, saying they had “ruined the Liberal Party in NSW by trampling its constitution”.

“Morrison is not interested in the rules-based order,” she said. “It is his way or the highway – an autocrat and a bully who has no moral compass … Morrison is not fit to be Prime Minister.”

It is not the first time Fierravanti-Wells has turned on her own leader. In 2016 she made the damaging revelation that she had confronted Tony Abbott when he was still prime minister over perceptions of impropriety (which he denied as “scurrilous gossip and smear”) that her critics said was a bid for ministerial promotion in the event of a leadership change. Which is what occurred. In 2018, she was a supporter of Peter Dutton and resigned from the Turnbull ministry following the first leadership ballot, releasing her resignation letter in which she accused the then prime minister of isolating conservatives.

While Morrison may not have the time to change people’s minds about his character before the election, that doesn’t mean he is destined to lose. But he will need his team to be disciplined, on message and focus the national debate on the government’s record of achievement while demanding to know Labor’s plan for the next three years.

The aim must be to have voters look through any frustration with Morrison and con­sider what an Albanese-led govern­ment would mean for the country. The government cannot afford the central election equation to be reduced to a debate on Morrison’s character – to an anti-Morrison protest vote. But this is the outcome that interventions such as those of Fierravanti-Wells will achieve: an easy pass for Albanese to the Lodge.

Joe Kelly is The Australian’s Canberra bureau chief.