When Scott Morrison speaks, list ’em up, folks

The Prime Minister Scott Morrison during question time in the House of Representatives at Parliament House, Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

If there’s one thing you need to know to perfect your spooky ScoMo Halloween costume (see Strewth’s list of last-minute trick or treat — or track and trace if you’re in Victoria — costume ideas) … it’s that the leader of the Quiet Australians loves an inventory.

Whether you’re a butcher, baker or candlestick maker, you’re on Scott Morrison’s list.

Take his press conference last Friday: “Whether that’s quarantining in home, on farm, in camp, at a mining camp, on campus or any of these options”.

The Prime Minister loves listing laws: “Whether it’s on the law of the sea or otherwise.”

Listing ages: “You’re 55 or whether you’re 25, or even 65”, “young kids or old Diggers like those guys”.

Occupations: “Nurses, teachers, drivers — cleaners, doctors, police and paramedics — factory workers, engineers, bankers — grocers, miners and farmers — pastors, priests and imams — politicians, union officials, even lawyers — mums, dads, grand­parents, kids, families.”

Wranglers: “It doesn't matter whether you’re running a business or … a community organisation or you’re a parent, you try and get all the kids in the car.”

Shapes: “Whether it’s V-shaped or U-shaped or whatever shape you want to come up with. It’ll be as best as possible the shape we make it.”

Activities: “From everything from whether it’s in the Shire, if you’re going surfing, or if you’re walking in the local national park.”

Water: “They talk to me about those plastic bottles and the things in the oceans, whether it‘s their rivers and oceans and streams, or those floating around in the Pacific or around the seas of Southeast Asia.” 

Essential services: “Aged care, whether it’s education, whether it’s driving a tram”, “people who are stacking shelves, that’s essential”, “in the lunchroom and the staff room and drop-off and pick-up … on a dock, we’ve dealt with those things on wharves as well.”

What we’ve had to lose: “Our humanity or whether that’s our kid’s schooling or whether it’s that last hug”.

Geography: “Whether we’re from the bush, whether we’re from the city, whether we’re from Queensland, the territory, Western Australia”, “whether it’s here, there or anywhere”.

Home grown: “Building submarines or building offshore pat­rol vessels or frigates or advanced, whether it’s in other states like Queensland with vehicles.”

Blue collar jobs: “Aluminium smelting in Gladstone, steel processing in Port Kembla and Whyalla, ethanol production at Shoalhaven Heads down on the south coast, fertiliser production in Mount Isa, aerospace at Fishermans Bend for Boeing or ships at Port Adelaide and Henderson in Western Australia.”

Blue ribbon colleagues: “Greg Hunt over in health … Josh Frydenberg leading our economic charge. Dan Tehan and the work he’s done in education and childcare … Karen Andrews doing amazing work.”

Nats: “The ring road that’s coming, and Rookwood weir and all of these things, the stadium. I mean, that’s Michelle (Landry).”

State mates like Steven Marshall: “He’s passionate about South Australia, whether it’s space or … Osborne, or getting money for Adelaide Zoo.”

The listicle idiosyncrasy has even been parodied on his favourite ABC show, Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell, by “Leo Hatred, anger manager for Scott Morrison”. “Australians everywhere, Shaun, whether they be at a barbie or on a building site or on the backbench or down a stormwater drain or on the Mad Mouse or chairing a royal commission or in a meth lab or at a black mass, whoever you are — you could be a woman, and good on ya …. Australians everywhere, whether they be engineers or warlocks or nudists or pig walkers or sponge testers.” Boom-tish.