Trivial matter, maybe, but it can come back to bite Scott Morrison

Photo: AAP

Scott Morrison is under pressure and making mistakes.

The bizarre, trivial and mishandled dodgy claims of Angus Taylor in a climate change fight with the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, have turned into a political problem out of all proportion to their importance.

Labor has managed to secure a NSW police investigation, recruited Malcolm Turnbull, commanded the parliamentary tactics and muddied the Prime Minister’s judgment and integrity, all on the basis of a clumsy ministerial mistake.

On Tuesday, Morrison had a choice of either standing by his Energy Minister or standing him aside under the ministerial behaviour guidelines — he chose to stick.

On Wednesday, Morrison observed the first rule of managing a political scandal, which is that if you decide to dig in, you stay dug — no retreat and no surrender.

Morrison is now committed to keeping Taylor in place until the NSW police inquiry is completed.

If the inquiry clears Taylor, he remains in his job and Labor will have one more, failed attempt at political smear through police inquiry.

If Taylor is charged, he’s gone and Morrison’s loyalty, judgment and integrity will be damaged.

Until then, Labor will continue to pressure the Coalition, disrupt parliament and diminish Morrison’s year of success in the last weeks of the year.

Morrison is supremely confident of a positive outcome for Taylor and is determined to fight Labor on integrity grounds, but the very banality of the claims, the lack of any venal interest, the potential for political exploitation of police inquiries and need to be loyal as a leader has blinded Morrison to the potential dangers — and he’s making errors.

In political terms, his decision to stand by Taylor — undeserving as he may be — was correct and defensible.

The first mistake Morrison made was to decide to personally call NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller to confirm there was an investigation before making his decision whether to stand Taylor aside.

No one — not Turnbull, Fuller or Anthony Albanese — has yet suggested there was anything said that was improper or inappropriate, but that doesn’t save Morrison from the appearance of political interference and a whole truckload of Labor questions opening up new avenues of political inquiry.

It’s one thing for a prime minister to seek advice — via staff — on whether an inquiry was under way, and an entirely different one to personally speak to the police commissioner, who is an acquaintance.

Morrison can argue that nothing untoward was said, he telegraphed it publicly in parliament and reported back to parliament, but it doesn’t change the appearance of a call from a prime minister to the police on an operational matter.

Nor does it help if you decide to go for Labor’s throat over its integrity and wrongly attribute quotes in parliament.

Finally, it’s a mistake to think that, just because something is trivial, it can’t hurt.