Morrison’s changes of pace take game to Labor

Prime Minister Scott Morrison during Question Time yesterday.

Scott Morrison is proving to be a fast-moving target, with dramatic changes of political pace and topic giving him a fighting chance even as Bill Shorten and Labor continue to exploit the division and incalculable damage of a leadership change.

It is becoming clearer by the day that the new regime is more adept at political tactics, able to address multiple issues — large and small — while being resolute and consistent in response to Labor’s attacks.

The Prime Minister proved yesterday he can switch from vaudeville to serious policy decisions and political problem-solving while not taking his eyes off Labor. After grabbing the initiative last weekend by announcing an aged care royal commission. Morrison moved seamlessly into confronting the serious consumer issue of strawberry contamination before reinforcing his concern for drought-affected farmers by announcing help on hay trucks.

Labor had to agree with the new strawberry sabotage laws and couldn’t complain about the straw supplies for farmers.

But not content with winning the dreaded 24-hour news cycle, Morrison unveiled a $4.2 billion solution to the non-government-school funding debacle that had dogged Malcolm Turnbull and his unnecessarily abrasive education minister, Simon Birmingham.

For more than a year, the Turnbull-Birmingham Gonski funding model and gratuitous insults to Catholic educators, combined with higher fees for parents at non-government schools, had caused alarm within the Coalition and allowed the Opposition Leader to exploit Catholic discontent at the ballot box.

After a month in the job, Morrison and the new minister, Dan Tehan, solved the crisis by acting on the funding review recommendations, accepting the review’s findings that the concerns of systemic Catholic schools were justified and didn’t suggest Catholic schools were “taking 30 pieces of silver” by dealing with Labor.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison during Question Time yesterday.

Regardless of whether Turnbull or Morrison was PM, this policy and political solution couldn’t have been reached with Birmingham in place.

Morrison, behaving in the mould of Robert Menzies and John Howard, moved to reclaim the Coalition’s traditional strength on funding for non-government schools and was able to take something positive out of the leadership change.

After so long and successfully cultivating the “Catholic vote”, Labor was forced back on to its mantra of “state schools first”.

Of course, Morrison can’t escape or resist the parliamentary baiting from the Opposition Leader over the leadership change and his self-described “muppet show”. Once again, Morrison was asked why Turnbull wasn’t still PM and suffered the sideshow of Labor MPs with Muppet characters.

The new Liberal leader can’t explain his presence without dumping on the previous Liberal leader, so instead he embraces the pain and dysfunction of leadership challenge and attempts to turn the odium of “Canberra politics” back on to Shorten with claims he’s only interested in “playing games”.

Morrison’s staunch defence of Peter Dutton — now that Labor has stalled on the visa intervention allegations after damaging the Home Affairs Minister politically — was another sign the PM was going to be steadfast and not about to abandon any colleagues.