Morrison’s relying on values to silence tribal drums

Scott Morrison wants to fight on ideas — the arena where the Liberals have been vanquished over the past half-decade.

This is a risky but essential project. Leaders these days cannot survive just by results, even impressive results; they need to project their convictions in an ideological and populist age.

The Prime Minister draws the distinction between the “what” — the actual policies — and the “why”, by which he means “the things that I believe in”. Because Morrison is still formulating the policies after being elected PM, it makes sense to introduce himself to the public by focusing on his convictions and character.

This has two purposes: to offer a shattered party and its base some guiding stars as it tries to navigate a future, and to offer the disillusioned public a sense of the values of the Morrison government and its leader. The prospects for success are not high but Morrison will give it a shake.

His Albury address to honour the Menzies legacy was an excellent start in symbolism and content. The message is that Morrison is his own man — he doesn’t come to the leadership as the banner carrier of the conservative or the progressive factions. The populist conservative media doesn’t get this reality as it conducts its drum-beating and futile campaign to persuade Morrison to buckle before its flawed agenda.

The truth is Morrison wants to move beyond the internal conflict between Tony Abbott as the conservative champion and Malcolm Turnbull as the progressive champion. Within the party such divisions are entrenched and, unless they are reduced, the Liberals will remain permanently broken.

Morrison is right to emphasise the idea of generational change. But acceptance will not be easy, given the Liberals have been locked on to the progressive-conservative schism for many years. Indeed, such internal tensions reached their climax in the struggle that saw the conservatives liquid­ate Turnbull, leaving a legacy of smouldering animosities.

Morrison has the right mix — a conservative but not a tribal conservative. He was elected with the support of the progressive wing of the party against Peter Dutton, the conservative banner carrier who would have swung the party much further to the Right. For Morrison, this power dynamic has its own logic. His need is to bring the party together and make a more broadbased appeal to the public.

The contrast with Turnbull and Abbott is illuminating. Turnbull was a rationalist and transactional leader but weak on projecting conviction. Abbott was a conviction politician who failed as PM to sell his conservative convictions to the public. Both were removed by the partyroom.

In seeking to reposition the party, the leader Morrison most resembles is John Howard — and Howard, while casting the Liberals as a “broad church”, came from the conservative wing of the party. He reflected the appreciation in 2014 by party director Brian Lough­nane: “History shows the successful Liberal leaders — Menzies, Fraser, Howard and Abbott — have come from the conservative side of the party. They secured the base and built upon it.”

While Abbott ultimately was unable to build upon it, this analysis of history is valid. Morrison, however, knows that the conservative wing of the Liberals in ­recent times has become too narrow, too introspective and too out of touch with mainstream opinion. He must therefore offer a more practical brand of conservatism while ensuring a position for progressives within the party — this is the only path forward for the Liberals from here.

What are Morrison’s values? First, he challenges Bill Shorten dir­ectly on fairness, the narrative the Opposition Leader has owned for several years. Morrison repeats daily that fairness doesn’t mean “that for someone to get ahead in life, you’ve got to pull others down”. This is an assault on the morality of Labor’s tax redistribution agenda at the heart of its policy and values. “We believe in a fair go for those who have a go,” Morrison says. He rejects the idea of taxing some people more to tax other people less. He says you don’t blame and punish one part of the community to relieve the burden on others. “That’s not fairness in Australia,” he says. “That’s just ugly envy.”

This is tied to growth, jobs and tax cuts all round. Morrison wants a society where people “make a contribution, not seek one”. The aim is to offer incentives for everybody — encouraging young, disabled Australians to have similar life choices to other Australians is one example he gave.

But this aspiration applies across the board: to strive for a culture where people make a community contribution, not just take what the rest of community offers. This has potential as an appeal to virtue when our public life is ­debased by rent-seeking, special interests and outrageous bidding up of demands for public spending.

Morrison has an inclusive view of Liberal philosophy — an essential step given the party’s frequent lapse into an exclusivist culture. “We want to keep Australians together,” he says. “I love Australia. Who loves Australia? Everyone. We all love Australia. Of course, we do. But do we love all Australians? That’s a different question, isn’t it? We’ve got to. That’s what brings the country together.”

Morrison will not become an automatic culture-war PM. But he will take a stand for religious freedom, saying “if you’re not free to believe in your own faith then you’re not free” — a stance that will trigger a fight with Labor.

At a time when progressives focus on class warfare, minority rights and identity politics, Morrison’s mantra may work — though it is undermined by an understandable public cynicism. The significance, however, is that Morrison has opened the door on a moral position for the Liberals to take the fight to Labor. The overlooked great difference between Liberal and Labor in recent times has been Labor’s skill at putting its policies in a framework of justice, morality or compassion.

Every leadership crisis has its unpredictable costs; this crisis has seen the eruption of public debate about the Liberal Party’s attitude towards women and weak female representation in parliament. Is this now an election issue? Yes — the party will pay for a culture that for years offered too little incentive for women. Now, in panic, it seeks a woman to hold Wentworth, with Morrison needing to present as pro-women but also to contain the internal damage.

Morrison, however, can invoke the Menzian and Howard traditions for one of his central themes: more tax cuts for small to medium-sized businesses, combined with finance and industrial relations reforms. This is where he has the chance of wedging Labor, not just on policy but on a fusion of values. With seven million workers employed by companies below the $50 million turnover threshold and Labor opposed to further tax cuts, Morrison has an opportunity to make this a defining issue.

The PM will confront the worst Liberal failure of recent years — to hold Shorten to account for his personal and institutional dependence on union power. Labor is brazen in the way it seeks vast additional power for unions at the election and relies on the unions to win the campaign. Morrison’s only hope is to make this not just an economic issue but an issue of trust, integrity and morality. Why, however, should the public listen to the Liberals?