Scott Morrison out in front of a bruised and battered Liberal Party

Scott Morrison has outsmarted his opponents to seize the prime ministership, but he must balance change with continuity.

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke

Scott Morrison has outsmarted and out-muscled his opponents to come through the centre and seize the prime ministership — smashing the great conservative revolt, thwarting the Peter Dutton bid for office and repudiating the demand for a radical shift to the Right.

The bitter years of the Abbott-Turnbull power struggle are terminated with Malcolm Turnbull’s surprisingly narrow defeat 45-40 votes in the party room and his plan to quit parliament. Power has passed to a new team and generation — Morrison, who just beat Dutton 45-40 votes, as well as his deputy, Josh Frydenberg, the new Treasurer.

Given that Turnbull’s position had been crippled, the Morrison-Frydenberg team is the best for the Liberals. There will be no early election — Morrison intends to govern. He will extend an offer to Dutton to rejoin the ministry. But the closeness of the vote points to a deeply divided party, with Morrison facing a huge healing task as leader.

Within the partyroom Morrison quoted from the Book of Joshua and Frydenberg quoted from John Howard — the new leader and deputy depict the Liberals as the party of both the conservative and liberal traditions, a stance Turnbull never endorsed.

Morrison told the media the Liberal Party was “bruised and battered” by the crisis but his focus would be the Australian people and “the beliefs and values that we hold” in common.

The conservatives triggered this revolt but lost control of it in a tragicomic farce. They destroyed Turnbull but suffered a crushing defeat and failed to claim the prime ministership. There will be no radical reset to the Right. The future of the Liberal Party now depends on whether the conservatives accept this judgment or seek to destroy Morrison as they destroyed Turnbull. That would be unforgivable treachery.

The upshot will be a critical change in the Liberal firmament. Morrison is a grassroots politician, instinctive, bred into the party, located in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire, a tough border protectionist, a Christian, a realist, pledged to small business, and an economic pragmatist; he also struggles to engage or persuade the public, has arch enemies in the conservative wing and will battle to hold the party together — as would anybody who won this ballot.

Morrison is a fallback leader given the demise of Turnbull’s numbers. The Liberal Party was shell-shocked after the ballot but the sense of relief was tangible. Morrison, unlike Turnbull, is a born political animal, aggressive and a warrior. His message yesterday was unity. His problem is an uninspiring profile and an inability to sell a narrative. The business community will be relieved that Morrison, not Dutton, has prevailed. But given the chaos of the past week there is no certainty Morrison will get a honeymoon.

But consider the alternatives on offer — Turnbull’s position had been destroyed though he was just beaten in the spill motion; foreign minister and deputy leader Julie Bishop, while popular and well known, lacked the party’s confidence as leader; Dutton offered the prospect of a clean break and new direction to the Right yet he was as too much an experimental gamble likely to lose seats outside Queensland. The party voted — just — to stay in the centre.

Morrison and Frydenberg come to the leadership with honest hands. They fought but did not betray. They voted for Turnbull in the spill motion. They backed the leader; they did not assassinate the leader. Morrison’s position from the start was to back Turnbull against Dutton but once Turnbull was terminal Morrison launched a relentless campaign mobilising the progressive wing and centrists against Dutton.

The irony is that Dutton would have won any ballot conducted 24 hours earlier. If Turnbull had agreed to a vote mid-Thursday as the Dutton camp demanded, the challenger would have got across the line. But Turnbull’s delaying tactics were critical. Turnbull’s decision to accept any spill motion as a vote of “no confidence” transformed this from a Turnbull-Dutton contest and opened the door to a 24-hour three-way Dutton-Morrison-Bishop contest.

That made the difference. The upshot is that Dutton has almost certainly lost any chance of becoming leader in the future. This challenge has damaged the two flag-carrying conservatives, Tony Abbott and Dutton. It also means the conservatives no longer have a leader in Turnbull to serve as a ­demonising figure and rallying point for their followers.

When Turnbull held his farewell media conference yesterday he said he was proud to have led a “progressive” Liberal Coalition government. Neither Morrison nor Frydenberg will brand the new government in these terms. This was made clear yesterday. There will be more of a return to the genuine Howard tradition.

Morrison won because he mobilised the entire moderate wing against Dutton. He possessed the best policy credentials given his experience in immigration, social security and Treasury. And finally, he tapped the alarm running through the party about Dutton’s elevation and the risk this posed to seats in Sydney and Melbourne.

The danger for Morrison is that Queensland remains alienated and angry that the specific benefit Dutton offered — winning back a section of the One Nation vote — cannot be secured by Morrison and that the breakaway on the Right cannot be repaired to give the Coalition any chance at the election.

Frydenberg’s victory in the deputy’s ballot was convincing. He refused, critically, to run on a joint ticket but canvassed across the board. He won on the first ballot with 46 votes, with Steven Ciobo on 20 votes and Greg Hunt, badly damaged because of his ties with Dutton, coming last on 15 votes.

In effect, the Liberal leadership transition expected post-election has come pre-election. Morrison’s campaign performance against Bill Shorten will determine whether he is also liquidated in six months. While Morrison told the party it must unite and that the Turnbull-Abbott age of turbulence was over, it is fanciful to think the government can recover its public standing after this orgy of political chaos and bloodletting.

A disgusted public will mark down the Liberals while Shorten boasts that Labor has learnt its lesson from the Rudd-Gillard years. Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen was quick to nail the flaw in the new government team, saying Morrison and Frydenberg had presided over “a failed economic plan and a failed energy plan”. Labor’s message is that Australia doesn’t need a new Liberal leader — it needs an election and a new government.

Morrison signalled his immediate priority was the drought, followed by electricity prices and healthcare. He listed his concerns as affordable medicines, aged care, Medicare, small and medium-sized business. His overarching commitments are a strong economy, national security to keep Australians safe and keeping the country together and united.

Morrison’s style, image and outlook will be different to Turnbull — but that is not enough. Morrison with Frydenberg as a new Treasurer needs to signal new economic priorities. This project will be urgent for his government. Turnbull leaves behind two policy wreckages — the defeat on corporate tax and the defeat on the national energy guarantee.

For Morrison, this is a perfect opportunity.

While Morrison and Frydenberg have been deeply involved in both policies, these defeats drive the need for a revamp. Morrison can be expected to rebadge corporate tax with a fresh commitment for small and medium-sized business. Turnbull, Morrison and Frydenberg had previously outlined a new energy policy designed to take a big stick to the energy companies and vest the ACCC with fresh powers to cut power bills. The test for Morrison and Frydenberg on the economy is to get the balance right between continuity and change.

Morrison played down the risk from a by-election in Wentworth. The Liberals should win but a protest vote at Turnbull’s removal is guaranteed. The government’s weakened numbers in the House of Representatives — at least for a short time — create fresh dangers. Any suggestion that Morrison’s elevation threatens its command on the floor of the House of Representatives would be lethal.

The problem of Australia’s dysfunctional political system has only deepened. In each of the last four parliamentary terms the prime minister has been deposed by an internal strike — Kevin Rudd in 2010, Julia Gillard in 2013, Tony Abbott in 2015 and Malcolm Turnbull in 2018. The last PM to complete a full parliamentary term was John Howard in 2007.

Australia has had six changes of prime minister in the past 11 years and that is almost certain to become seven changes given Shorten is heavily favoured to win the next election.

It is apparent that parliamentary parties cannot manage the pressures they face — political and personal — and that removal of the leader has become entrenched as an option with the instability and chaos this precipitates.

The public hates this process. It sees the politicians locked into their own struggles and self-obsessions, the irony being these are conducted in the name of public sentiment. The upshot is the public grows more hostile towards and disillusioned with the political and parliamentary system and more ready to vote for minor parties, thereby compounding the situation.

Turnbull was undone this week by the Tuesday partyroom vote when he prevailed 48 to 35, which meant only a switch of seven votes was required to remove him. This sent panic waves through the party. At this point the Dutton camp held the momentum. The critical event was the decision of Senate leader Mathias Cormann, who told Turnbull on Wednesday he had lost the support of the partyroom and should promote a transition to Dutton.

Cormann was always the pivotal figure; his resignation sealed Turnbull’s fate. But Turnbull’s ability to win 40 votes on Friday against the spill motion reveals the Dutton push, at the end, had lost momentum. While Turnbull was unable to beat Dutton, Morrison did the job, just.

Turnbull said the public would be “dumbstruck and appalled” by the Liberal Party’s conduct this week. “Insurgency is the best way to describe it, deliberate destructive action,” he said. “A month ago, as you know, as I said yesterday, we were a little behind in the national polls and a little ahead in our own polls. I think many Australians will be shaking their heads in disbelief at what’s being done.”

What is the scorecard at the end of the week? The Turnbull progressive experiment in Liberal governance is terminated. Turnbull was brought undone by his inability to relate to the party’s base, his equivocal standing with the public — witness his poor performance at the 2016 election — and the relentless campaign conducted against him. The Turnbull-Bishop leadership team has been demolished and Bishop’s long run as deputy is no more.

The conservatives saw off Turnbull but lost the bigger battle that mattered. Cormann’s immense standing will be damaged by the decisions he took. Dutton will return to cabinet but is probably a diminished figure. Morrison, as the new Prime Minister, is a conservative but not part of the conservative tribe in the party.

Frydenberg is the first of the younger generation to break through to a leadership position, a good omen for the party. The Liberals have rejected a radical move to the Right to regain the One Nation vote — but the utility of this decision awaits judgment at the next election. The Queensland LNP will be disappointed and need careful attention by Morrison.

History suggests the transaction costs of a leadership change are underestimated. Morrison faces a huge challenge — trying to mend a broken party, unite the divided ranks, renew the attack against Labor and devise an election strategy.