Personal insults are a poor substitute for policy

Calling the Prime Minister a liar is a hypocritical campaign tactic that could backfire on the opposition.

Illustration: Johannes Leak.

In the inglorious annals of Machiavellian intrigue and partisan character assassination, it is unlikely that accusing a politician of fibbing would rank highly, either on grounds of creativity or effectiveness. It seems as shockingly unexpected as smearing a banker with greed, or perhaps as devastatingly damaging as suggesting a sailor might enjoy a drink.

Yet the “Liar from the Shire” smear has emerged as Labor’s ­primary early campaign theme against Scott Morrison’s Coalition government. Vote for us because the other bloke is as straight as a politician.

Credit where it is due, though. It takes some chutzpah for a party still labouring under Julia Gillard’s no carbon tax promise to launch a sortie like this. And prattling on about integrity while state anti-corruption bodies and courts dismember ALP networks in NSW and Victoria requires some intestinal fortitude too.

You have to wonder whether Labor have thought this through, or whether they are letting emotions get the better of them. With major global and national challenges afoot, voters might expect a little more substance than a prospective federal treasurer, in Jim Chalmers, chanting liar, liar, pants on fire.

Especially when Chalmers cut his teeth running then-treasurer Wayne Swan’s office and turning promised economic conservatism into a deep mess of cash-for-clunkers, pink batts and school halls. Not to mention, the key witness for the political porkies prosecution is Emmanuel Macron, the miffed French President.

Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers in Townsville. Picture: Caitlan Charles

When the once great party of the workers thinks mainstream voters will side with a haughty assessment by the leader of France against our own Prime Minister over a decision that was obviously in our national interest, then they might have lost touch.

It is difficult to resist the conclusion that Labor are allowing hatred of their opponents to cloud their better judgment.

Better to respect your opponents than to hate them. But the modern left tends to go all wild eyes and spitting lips with loathing for the Coalition, firing up their hardcore supporters but scaring away the mainstream.

Remember how John Howard was the devil incarnate? Anti-Asian, anti-Aborigine and anti-immigrant according to Labor – he won in a landslide.

Tony Abbott, too, was portrayed as the Mad Monk. Dogmatic, misogynistic and mean-spirited they said – he crushed Labor too.

Now they demonise Morrison. Political history suggests this just might be the best way to see him canonised a Liberal saint.

Federal elections are won mainly on substance, so opposition attacks ought to be based on substantive policy issues or critiques of competency. Sure, it is important to frame the leader, especially in our increasingly presidential-style campaigns, but overreach is always a risk.

In the ruthless world of political character assassination, the scalpel cuts deeper than the meat axe. A deft phrase that resonates can end a career – think of Donald Trump dismissing Jeb Bush as “low energy” or Paul Keating promising John Hewson he would “do you slowly”.

Portraying Morrison as a lying diablo suggests the opposition fears him. Besides, it is just not plausible; voters see spin and deception every day and they know full well where Morrison’s sins sit in the great pantheon of political pretence (spoiler alert – they are not in the same league as “no carbon tax” or tax cuts are “L.A.W. law”).

The left loves to hate. Antipathy from the left towards conservatives is more intense and visceral than the antagonism conservatives hold for the Labor side. You see it plainly now in Twitter feeds, but in days gone by you sensed it in their glare, heard it in their strained voices and saw it in their furrowed brows.

When I worked with then foreign minister Alexander Downer in the Howard years, he would laughingly console us that on the worst day in government we should remember Laura Tingle and her then husband Alan Ramsey would be bitter and resentful over breakfast, confronting another day with the detestable conservatives in power.

Laura Tingle and Alan Ramsey.

Mark Latham surely would reflect now that this antipathy towards the conservatives undercut his Labor leadership. A more measured approach, rather than spitting bile and tugging on handshakes, might have seen him survive, if not triumph, because on substance he was insightful.

It is not difficult to fathom the pre-eminence of this leftist strand of hatred; as someone who graduated from an undergraduate leftist phase, I have some comprehension. The revolutionary zeal, even class envy, of the left commits adherents to a moral mission of overturning the establishment and righting past wrongs – it encourages people to think of their opponents as morally repugnant, oppressive, and inhuman beings.

Conservatives typically eschew ideology and are committed to trying to run what is already a successful country, well. They also want to protect important institutions and foster worthwhile change.

The green left sees faults, inequity and injustice. They are on a permanent mission to upend the establishment, seize control and save the day.

To the left, be it mistreating ­refugees, discriminating against Aborigines, crushing the aspirations of women, agitating for war with China, or killing the planet, there must always be a demonic intent that demands the termination of a Coalition government. When you run such absurd and morally absolutist arguments, you cannot but hate your opponents.

And when you hate your opponents, you say and do silly things. Which tends to expose you to mainstream voters.

While the narrative from Labor and much of the media is that Morrison is on the run over these attacks on his credibility, the electoral reality is likely to be very different. This is not to say that the Prime Minister is blameless; his shiftiness over that Hawaii trip and silly denials about using the term Shanghai Sam, and the like, expose him to ridicule and he ought to be much more forthright.

But these issues hardly amount to a hill of beans. And the central charge about lying relates to the French submarine decision where the whole country knows France was on warnings and the Prime Minister made the right call.

What already looks like backfiring on Labor is its own hatred. As Johannes Leak exposed in his brilliant cartoon on Monday, Morrison’s opponents are willing to run any deceit, promote any untruth, to portray him as a liar.

Hence when he condemned, unequivocally, the noose swingers and death threats from a tiny minority of the protesters gathered against Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ proposed pandemic laws, Andrews, Labor and its supporters on the green left accused him of “double speak” and “dog-whistling”. Nine Entertainment journalist David Crowe went on the ABC and said he would not use “word games” or engage in a “semantic tutorial” to attack Morrison, but then did just that, slamming the Prime Minister solely because he did not use a particular word that Rowe wanted to hear.

Morrison was slammed by leftist politicians and media alike for daring to express sympathy with the frustrations of the protesters, who were overwhelmingly peaceful. The green left media/political class was outraged, effectively ­demanding that the actions of a handful of nutters should not only be invoked to smear Morrison but also delegitimise the entire protest movement and cause.

Scott Morrison’s opponents are willing to run any deceit, promote any untruth, to portray him as a liar.

Given most major street protests are run by leftist organisations for leftist causes, and more often than not they include illegal or offensive behaviour such as effigy burning or personal threats, try to remember the last time the media/political class used those protests to smear politicians of the left or to delegitimise the cause.

For most of last year, American cities were torn apart and burned, people were beaten and killed, and police were attacked in endless Black Lives Matter and anti-Trump protests – and the media tended to call then “mainly peaceful”. But this month, a few idiots swing a noose, and suddenly anyone who disagrees with Daniel Andrews is an extremist. This stuff runs well on Twitter, The Guardian and ABC News, but Labor hardheads must realise it risks driving the mainstream away.

It is staggering how unhinged this sort of politicking has become. Activist law firm Marque last week tweeted: “It really should be remarked upon that, this week, the Prime Minister sympathised with people who had literally threatened to murder a state premier. It set a new low.”

The same account said Morrison had “dog whistled to domestic far right proto-terrorists instead of condemning them unequivocally”. It is alarming to think these protagonists have seen the divisiveness in the United States last year and settled on that tactic as a viable model to unseat the incumbents in this country.

To be sure, this invocation of extremist language and tactics, and this brutal character assassination of the Prime Minister, is a ­direct replication of the ugliest aspects of American politics. It is the Mediscare campaign on steroids – it is the MorriScare campaign – and so far, it is the only strategy we have seen from Labor.

Without word of a lie, we might be about to see the nastiest election campaign in decades. Morrison should resist returning similar fire, but rather ask people to trust his performance, with all its imperfections, rather than embrace Labor’s histrionics.