Scott Morrison can still rise up and win
Voters know we need a strong leader right now, rather than a popular one.
One of the greatest challenges in assessing national affairs is discerning the blurred line between the banality and venality of low-grade partisan politicking, and the tectonic shifts in cultural and political evolution. It is always tempting to either revel in the tabloid drama of the former, or immerse yourself in the high-minded considerations of the latter.
The bracing reality is that the ego-driven, influence-wielding mundanity of personalised and factionalised politicking feeds directly into the national and strategic leadership that shapes our culture, protects our sovereignty, and determines our future. So, while we might want to dismiss the looming federal election as a contemptuous contest between two once great parties that seem to have forgotten their legacies and constituencies in the cynical and desperate pursuit of easy votes or political survival, the truth is that it really matters for the country.
The detestable and daft factional infighting of the NSW Liberal Party might do to your political appetite what a fly does for your soup, but it can have a profound impact on the party’s climate and energy policy, and therefore the future of the nation.
Similarly, the mercenary obsequiousness of some Labor operatives towards Chinese communist interests might repeat on you like bad takeaway, but it can swing ALP settings on foreign policy and alliance issues.
Which means that while we might want to avert our eyes from the dispiriting election contest that is already under way (awaiting only the declaration of an official campaign and an election date for either May 14 or 21), we really should pay attention.
While the outcome might not be as consequential as it should be, it will come at a most perilous time in our post-war history, and will shape our future.
This is one of the reasons that I give the Coalition a chance of winning. The substantial issues favour them – and voters, en masse, have a habit of making wise decisions.
If voters want to avoid any risk of being walked over by Beijing, restarting asylum boat arrivals, further undermining our energy security, eroding a tentative economic recovery, or weakening our defence capabilities, they might decide to stay with the daggy dad they know. Labor assures voters that none of these things will change, but everything else will.
A Coalition win will not be easy. But neither is the Labor path to majority as easy as many think; Anthony Albanese must win seats with margins of 5 per cent and more to claim power in his own right.
If Scott Morrison can find a way to focus the contest on the pressing challenges of our time – economic security, national security, border security, energy security, all the securities – there will be a tendency for voters to stick with a government whose intentions they understand, even if they are not enamoured with the Prime Minister or his team.
Labor’s task is to make the campaign about anything but these issues – fill it with distractions – so they can skate in as the antidote to an unpopular government.
Where Morrison has made a crucial error, politically and on substance, is his weakening of differentiation. On climate, energy and fiscal settings, he has steered Coalition positions ever closer to Labor’s rather than accentuating the choice.
Concerns about the economic risk of Labor would be much higher if the Coalition had not generated so much debt and trumpeted such profligate spending. Likewise, Labor’s climate plans would appear far more reckless if the Coalition had not signed up to net zero by 2050 too.
Labor’s energy options would seem dangerously constrained if the Coalition had dared to embrace the possibility of a domestic nuclear industry.
Suffice to say that Albanese and his campaign strategists don’t want to have these debates. They want to spend as much of the time as possible attacking Morrison’s character.
They are aided and abetted by embittered Liberal losers intent on vengeance. The media helps too – in a 16-minute ABC 7.30 interview this week, Morrison was asked more than 25 questions by Leigh Sales, and only one went to policy.
Morrison, to be sure, has drawn some heat his way – his decision almost three years ago to holiday overseas was unwise – but the bulk of the vitriol directed his way over disaster management and the so-called women problem is Twitter-level abuse rather than fair political critique.
The open question is how much the media fascination with these gripes translates to real people’s motivations at the ballot box.
Morrison’s major political mistakes have nothing to do with this narrative. Rather, they have been to abandon conservative positions, such as embracing net zero, failing to stand up against state government overreach during the pandemic, and largely ducking the crucial cultural battles around education, identity politics and public broadcasting. The Coalition has tried to appease the left rather than debate and defeat it.
The crowded and agitated field of breakaway parties on Morrison’s right flank – One Nation, United Australia, Liberal Democrats – is testament to this conservative disenchantment. The same forces were at play three years ago and while their preferences helped to deliver victory to the Coalition, if Morrison had won back a third of their first preferences, he might be home and hosed.
According to Newspoll, Morrison’s primary vote is at least four points below where it needs to be, so only a steady climb from now until the election can work for him (even allowing for the “shy Tory” factor that seems to routinely underestimate the Coalition vote).
Labor’s charmed run of Liberal saboteurs and blameless media is bound to be interrupted at some stage by some scrutiny – it’s likely to be a close result, even a hung parliament.
Last month’s South Australian election provided a salient warning for Morrison. When Liberal governments delude themselves that they are being centrist by steering their party to the left on climate and energy, and on social and cultural issues, they usually come a cropper.
Morrison has been dragged some way down this path, shaping policy to protect inner-city moderates while disappointing conservative stalwarts. He needs to sharpen the contrast with his opponent, a Socialist Left opposition leader pretending to be a mainstream ALP type like South Australia’s new premier Peter Malinauskus.
In an unstable and worrying time, those security issues – economic, national, border, energy – are Morrison’s trump card. If the PM stands tall on them during relentlessly personalised attacks from Labor and the Greens, it might actually enhance his stature as a tough leader. In this way, Labor’s character assassination attempts could backfire.
What does not kill Morrison might reveal him as stronger – he calmly listened to an aggressive pensioner in a pub this week while Albanese squirmed away from a non-media question in a park.
Voters might want a leader who can stand up to Xi Jinping, deal with Vladimir Putin, and even be prepared to annoy Emmanuel Macron. Morrison’s enemies make him out to be a hard man, just when people are looking at Joe Biden and world events and thinking a tough leader could be handy.
We shall see.
But rest assured that in this federal election, there will be no prime minister elected, nor major party endorsed, because of wild affection from voters.
The winner will be the one judged the least worst option, or best suited to the times.
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