A question of character

By November 1, 2021Australian Politics

Everyone who reads articles in the blog will know that I have a particularly low opinion of Scott Morrison’s character1-3, as Emmanuel Macron also seems to do4.

I used to think that it was not possible to have a worse Prime Minister than Tony Abbott; that he was the nadir of the possibilities thrown up by the political class. However, I was wrong. Abbott, like Morrison, is an accomplished liar and an incompetent. However, Morrison is significantly worse. He lies and obfuscates constantly. He abrogates responsibility seemingly under the impression that if he does nothing, he will attract no blame for any failures for the responsibilities avoided. He is only concerned about himself and continuing as Prime Minister; there is no concern for the future of the nation, nor for that of the planet. He misuses public funds to pork barrel with the aim of ‘buying’ elections. He avoids scrutiny and accountability constantly. However, I am not the only one who has a low opinion of him. There are many people who have realised what he is like. Here are a few of them.

Nadine Von Cohen: Morrison’s vacuity goes beyond a hard-core stoner-level lack of motivation to repair broken people, places, policies and promises. His reign of disdain is a study in apathy and indolence, full of absences and shirking. His infamous justification for his mid-bushfires Hawaiian holiday – “I don’t hold a hose, mate” – is just the tip of the iceberg5.

G. Dixon: Scott Morrison couldn’t lead a dog on a leash. He’s a follower. He waits for someone else to do and say something and if it looks like it might be a goer, he rides on their coat tails; then he calls press conferences to big note himself and take the credit6.

Jack Waterford: Scott Morrison encapsulates the retreat from values, the lack of regard for truth, for decency and the long-term public interest7.

John Birmingham: [Morrison’s] core competency is not taking responsibility for anything that goes even a little bit pear-shaped, while snatching up the gold medal glory for themselves when things do go well. There is an even more cynical aspect to this however, and that’s the way Morrison has hijacked the civic capital of a national, non-political institution like the Army to protect himself and his government from legitimate critique and condemnation. In this he has made a human shield of General Frewen8.

John Hewson: Morrison has lost control of the virus and vaccine narrative. He is losing control of the economic narrative as we now risk a double-dip recession. He has accepted Barnaby Joyce back with no conditions – indeed, let him start to dictate climate and other policy. He has failed to deal effectively with claims of rape, bullying and harassment in Parliament House; has normalised pork-barrelling, corruption and wasteful expenditure; denies responsibility; is quick to blame others; and ignores the need for reform in response to the great social challenges of Indigenous recognition, child- and aged-care, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, mental illness and domestic violence9.

Jo Dyer: It’s getting all a bit much, isn’t it? The sheer, maddening, shamelessness of this Government? Their incompetence, their venality, their insulting refusal to acknowledge realities that we see with our own eyes, their denial of past statements that we heard with our own ears, their base bleak morality that seeps into our bones. It’s dispiriting, it’s exhausting, and above all it’s endless. There is literally no end to the depths to which they sink10.

Dave Millner: In a saner world, making the lives of every human that will one day be born more miserable than they need to be wouldn’t be this electorally popular. That people aren’t hurling rotten fruit at this man [Scott Morrison] everywhere he goes speaks to both the incomprehensible scale of this problem, the stasis and denial humans willingly accept as epochs shift, and the demented national conversations had in places with sophisticated propaganda networks disguised as news media. Whether the ALP can get its shit together or not, one day Morrison will be gone. It is small solace, though, because there are many Morrisons. He is an archetype as much as a Prime Minister. A climate criminal, a neoliberal funnel, a stooge to the oligarchy. For humanity to pull itself out of the avoidable climate misery that we still can – which we should do, I live here – almost everything Morrison stands for needs to be rejected, the things he says scorned, and his entire platform eviscerated for the irresponsible bullshit it is11.

Sean Kelly: A maiden speech is often taken as a concise encapsulation of a politician’s outlook on the world; a pure expression of their actual self before the deadening effect of party politics and the need to please their seniors overwhelm them. Morrison’s speech is not concise; rather than clarity, it offers confusion. In this, it is just as much a classic maiden speech as any other – because this is Morrison, exactly. As so often in Morrison’s career, there is a sense that nobody, finally, is responsible. Bad things seem simply to happen, without the clear intention of anyone involved. If you go looking for solid meaning, something to tell you what he thinks about the world, you will be disappointed. It is like trying to grab at empty air. (edited extract from ‘The Game A Portrait of Scott Morrison’ by Sean Kelly, published by Black Inc.)12

As Nadine Von Cohen said, this is just the tip of the iceberg of those who have realised that Morrison is the sort of person who should never be allowed to occupy public office, as Australia is finding out to its cost.

Sources

  1. https://blotreport.com/2021/04/06/as-genuine-as-scott-morrison/
  2. https://blotreport.com/2021/07/24/the-appalling-morrison/
  3. https://blotreport.com/2021/03/26/for-morrison-its-always-someone-else/
  4. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/31/macron-accuses-australian-pm-of-lying-over-submarine-deal
  5. https://theshot.net.au/politics/the-long-long-long-list-of-all-the-times-that-scott-morrison-has-said-its-not-my-job/
  6. https://blotreport.com/2021/06/02/g-dixon-quote/
  7. https://johnmenadue.com/public-service-execution-might-be-improved-by-a-few-good-hangings/
  8. https://aliensideboob.substack.com/p/waiting-for-godots-vaccine-shipment
  9. https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2021/07/31/scott-morrison-and-the-truth/162765360012173
  10. https://theshot.net.au/opinion-news/shamelessness-is-the-only-currency-this-government-knows/
  11. https://theshot.net.au/general-news/what-is-the-point-of-prime-ministers-if-theyre-like-this/
  12. https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/on-policy-there-s-less-to-morrison-s-words-than-meets-the-eye-20211026-p593b3.html

8 Comments

  • admin says:

    Again, Arthur cannot access the website, so he sent me this:
    This is a brilliant collection of statements about Morrison. He has all the character of an amoeba. And I can’t believe the coincidence. This very morning, yes, half an hour ago, I sent an email to a group of Sydney-based friends, one of whom hero-worships Morrison and wears his Liberal voting habit as a badge of honour. It included this (which I’ve slightly edited):
    “Morrison’s all about announcements. As for actually managing anything competently, forget it. When Australia’s on fire, he effs off to Hawaii and sits on a deck chair with one of those girlie drinks with a little umbrella sticking out of it. When Australia needs vaccines, he insults the suppliers, says “it’s not a race” when it plainly is, and finishes up with half the country struggling to cope with the Delta variant. When Australia needs custom-purposed quarantine facilities he forgets to build them then shouts and finger-points at Labor state premiers. He calls NSW the gold standard in pandemic management then shrugs as NSW infects the entire South-East corner of Australia and part of New Zealand. When he needs a climate policy he sits on his arse for eight years then looks like the winner of a gurning contest while he waves a little blue pamphlet in the air, and wonders why expert climate scientists are calling it a useless piece of trash. And we used to think Tony Abbott was a clodhopping oik, a religious nutbag, a shin-kicking oaf, but he’s hardly in the same league as this jabbering ninny.”

  • Glenn says:

    The problem with Australia is that there are so many Liberal apologists who think their PM is the best thing since sliced bread. Their mentality is as follows:

    Spending time in Hawaii while the country is burning … Good one, Scotty.
    Refusing to force a CCP spy in Parliament to stand down … Good one, Scotty.
    Refusing to stand down MPs who are guilty of corruption … Good one, Scotty.
    Promoting an alleged rapist to Leader of the House … Good one, Scotty.
    Carrying out their illegal RoboDebt scheme that costed innocent lives … Good one, Scotty.
    Pissing off the French by canceling their submarines … Good one, Scotty.
    Attempting that he cares about us by showing up at a football match with baseball cap and beer in hand … Good one, Scotty.
    Being absolute bastards to the Tamil family … Good one, Scotty.

    The man is a total failure.

    It is not just Morrison that should be kicked out of office. The entire Coalition needs to be wiped out next election for breaking their own core principals and killing democracy in this country.

    • admin says:

      Glenn,
      Yep; many in the media are simply stenographers. All they do is regurgitate government media releases. If there is ever any analysis it is very limited and, as real journalist Ronni Salt says, they simply report the puppet show, not what is going on behind the curtain. It is sickening, and their inability or unwillingness to hold the government to account, they are aiding in the destruction of this nation.

  • Warren says:

    Scrumbag and Alan Jones for that matter are fully deserving of State Funerals, before they die.

    • admin says:

      Warren,
      When Jones carks it (hopefully before I do), I will travel to where he is buried, or where his ashes are, solely to urinate on his last resting place.

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