Holiday fiasco forgiven, PM, but not so easily forgotten

Using his family as a shield in the wake of his holiday blunder made Scott Morrison’s bad call worse.

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke

Last week started with the release of the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook on Monday. However, it was quickly overshadowed by the game of Where’s Wally? that followed the Prime Minister’s decision to take a family holiday in Hawaii during a national bushfire crisis.

Scott Morrison is right when he repeatedly tells us he doesn’t “hold a hose” and isn’t a trained firefighter. The Liberal Party has former prime minister Tony Abbott for such first-hand duties. And in a sign his volunteer firefighting was never for show, the now retired Abbott has been out there again this summer. But not knowing how to hold a hose doesn’t mean a prime minister should go on holidays as bushfires burn at an unprecedented breadth, magnitude and intensity, and as a state of emergency is declared in Morrison’s home state of NSW.

It’s called showing leadership and, perhaps surprisingly, Scotty from marketing (as the satirists have started to refer to the Prime Minister) was found wanting. Morrison has since worked overtime to visit as many emergency control rooms and fire-ravaged communities as he can, in a controlled display of compassion and caring, to try to overcome the perception that he doesn’t give a hoot.

I expected him at the very least to be adroit to the poor optics of being away at this time, especially overseas, sunning himself beachside, drink in hand, when it was his second overseas holiday this year alone. John Howard knew never to take overseas holidays with the family. He would always head up the coast for a few weeks each summer. I guess Morrison was trying to get away from the smoke.

Early on in this saga the most disturbing aspect to it (aside from the appalling lack of judgment and indifference to the situation at hand) was the reaction of Team Morrison to their boss being away. To protect his and his family’s whereabouts, secrecy won out. While at one level I can understand a new and inexperienced prime minister (and office) wanting that after a busy year, it’s not good enough.

And here is why, aside from the simple fact we live in a democracy.

It has been a busy year for Morrison and all his parliamentary colleagues on both sides, as they like to tell us. That is true. Election years always are; campaigning is intense, days are long and the work never stops. But let’s be clear: that work isn’t for the Australian people, it is for the politicians and the parties they serve. Self-interest is the order of the day. Campaigning, fundraisers, strategy meetings, media commitments, early morning tactics sessions, all with one aim — winning.

Parliament is supposed to sit for about 70 days each year. This year it sat for only half that time. Indeed it sat for only 10 days in the first eight months of the year. Little of substance was achieved this year. As MYEFO confirms, the economy is on life support, wages are stagnant and the only reason the surplus remains on track is because commodity prices are exceeding forecasts. In other words, the Coalition has a lot of work to do to make next year a success.

To be sure, this year was successful politically. Congratu­lations to Morrison, he won. And he won because more Australians wanted him as prime minister than wanted Bill Shorten. So he deserved his victory, including in the face of commen­tators like me who predicted he’d lose.

But the fatigue and burnout Morrison suffered by year’s end are not by-products of extreme service to Australia. After taking over the prime ministership Morrison said he would burn for his nation (an unfortunate choice of words, as it turns out). That level of commitment may be yet to come.

So far he has done it for himself and his party. It’s why he’s a deserved Liberal Party hero. If, however, he wants that sentiment to seep into the wider Australian psyche Morrison needs to show the same commitment to the population as a whole next year and beyond. Those seeking support in fire-ravaged communities have a right not to feel that way just yet.

All of that said, I have some bad news for the Morrison haters: this was not his Prince Philip moment. When Abbott chose to knight the Queen’s husband, Abbott already was on the nose courtesy of his first budget, which broke promises made the day before the election.

Morrison erred while still on a honeymoon of sorts. The more appropriate comparison is with Kevin Rudd when he walked away from the emissions trading scheme after the Greens and the Coalition blocked it in the Senate, and he refused to call an election.

Australians concluded that Rudd wasn’t as committed to climate change action as he’d let on. Voters now may conclude that Morrison isn’t as committed to this country as his folksy demeanour to date has suggested. Rudd didn’t get the chance to succeed or fail after his ETS error. His party panicked and removed him. That fate won’t befall Morrison. He’s likely to get the benefit of the doubt, but he will be judged more harshly if he fails again.

Which brings me to one final observation, which I found more unedifying in this whole sorry saga than what has been referred to already. When he fronted up after jetting back from Hawaii a day early, Morrison used the same phrases to try to justify his mistake: he had tried to do something for his kids and his wife. He knows Australians are a fair-minded bunch so they would understand such a thoughtful mistake.

I call it unedifying because he said it so many times, in a controlled, on-message way. They were Team Morrison’s tested lines, designed to quash anger at his actions. In short, to save himself, he tossed front and centre the family that time away from home was supposed to protect from view, using them to explain his error in not thinking like a prime minister in the first place and implying, as he did it, that anyone who didn’t forgive and forget wasn’t “fair-minded”.

Let me be extremely clear: I can understand the mistake. All parents know the difficulties of balancing work and family time. But for Morrison to spell it out so brazenly — on the back of everything that had come before it — felt like he was using his family as a political shield.

Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.