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He just won’t listen

Scott Morrison has an arrogant certainty about him.  Whether this comes from his self-perceived divine ordination, his devotion to ideology, an inflated view of his own merit, or a fear of appearing weak, it is an increasingly dangerous trait.

He just won’t listen.

ScoMo perceives advice as criticism.  If he didn’t think of it, and announce it first, then it’s not worth doing.

Like procuring and providing free rapid antigen tests to the community when you decide to “push through” with no restrictions and send everyone back to work and school as we approach the peak of a pandemic we have worked so hard to slow for two years.

Transport Workers Union national secretary Michael Kaine told ABC News Breakfast this morning that “there is no plan” to address supply and staff shortages in the sector.

“We wrote to Scott Morrison in September with a follow-up in October last year, saying it was critical, amongst other things, that road transport supply chains, were flooded with rapid antigen tests because we could see in the context of the Delta outbreak that if we intended to reopen, we needed to ensure that workers were testing negative and we were maximising the number of healthy people in supply chains or we would have a problem.

That was dismissed by the Morrison government. They don’t listen to the voices of workers… His approach here is to send back into the work force those people that we have deemed for the last two years close contacts, are most likely to be carrying the virus without knowing it. That means that we could actually be making matters worse.”

Similarly, there is still no plan on how to staff schools on short notice when teachers inevitably ring in sick.

The pattern was the same when former fire chiefs implored the Morrison government to act on climate change and better prepare the nation for extreme fire seasons ahead. The government would not meet the experts to hear the advice, let alone implement it.

When disaster struck, the excuses flowed.  It was the Greens fault for stopping hazard reduction burns.  It was just those “raving inner-city lunatics” and “woke capital-city greenies” who thought climate change had anything to do with it.  It was arsonists setting the fires.  And apparrently we had enough people to hold hoses so Scotty could take a well-earned morale-boosting rest.

Advice that Robodebt was illegal was also ignored, presumably because they thought poor people wouldn’t have the resources to challenge it.

Having subsequently been forced to repay $1.8 billion to over 400,000 people, the government is now appealing a FOI direction to release documents regarding how the scheme came about, claiming there is “strong public interest” in preserving the secrecy of “business case” documents because “ministers would not receive full and frank information if there was concern any deliberations would be made public”.

The Sanctity of the Cabinet?

Senior ministers between 2015 and 2016 included the former social services ministers, Scott Morrison and Christian Porter, who were members of cabinet, and the former human services ministers, Marise Payne and Alan Tudge, who were not.

Instead of listening to experts about the parlous state of the Great Barrier Reef, the government bribed delegates with resort holidays to get them to keep it off the World Heritage Endangered list.  Conflict of interest was ignored as money was given to kill a few crown of thorn starfish and attention focused on plastics.  Anything but climate change.  Land clearing and coastal development continue apace.

The idea of formalising a mechanism to listen to Indigenous Australians sent the government into a hissy fit.  A third Chamber!  A usurping of power!  Racist!

When several Liberal Party women spoke out about the bullying and intimidation they endured during the leadership spill that installed Scott Morrison, he said he would investigate internally.  A week later, he informed us that South Australian Liberal senator Lucy Gichuhi had told him she was not bullied by anyone in Canberra and no names of any perpetrators had been provided to him.

Morrison said politics was a very “torrid” business and his inquiries to date had not yielded evidence of “gender-specific actions” in relation to what some people would characterise as “very intense lobbying which is fairly normal in the political process, albeit not edifying”.

Having been in parliament for almost fifteen years, it’s hard to believe that Morrison hadn’t observed any “gender-specific actions” for himself since the place is a hotbed of sexual harassment, abuse and coercion.  Apparently, the only woman he listens to is Jen.

The flooding of the media by the Djokovic case has tangentially drawn attention to Australia’s draconian border enforcement and the plight of the refugees who have been held hostage for nine years.

When Morrison was told about the declining health and the neglect and abuse of children in detention, he denied it and accused advocates of promoting self-harm.  When told that refugees are suffering torture, he claimed our strong borders make that necessary.  Which makes his newfound concern about the mental health issues caused by state border closures sound very hollow.

It really doesn’t matter what issue is facing the nation, risk assessment and expert advice are ignored in favour of tame consultants, ministerial decree, contracts without tender, grants without due process, and appointments without merit.  We have panels and departments and commissions and reviews to make recommendations – all routinely ignored.  To have such unerring confidence that you know better is foolhardy.

Australia is paying a high price for Morrison’s hubris.

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34 comments

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  1. Shane Mortimer

    Narcissism is symptomatic of mental illness..

  2. Josephus

    In the UK one person in fifteen is infected. Is our new rate worse?I like the neologism ‘shadow lockdown’ because yes we have learnt caution. Only ideologically driven morons would imagine that we hoi polloi would rush out to crowd events . Ok, some would… crowds heaving and shoving with inane grins or mad fury, shouting and maskless, terrify many of us.

    Timor mortis conturbat me- medieval plague saying. Fear of death terrifies us all.

    Be cautious, people.

  3. GL

    You can add a huge dose of Dunning-Kruger Effect to his Trump level narcissism as well.

  4. Kate Ahearne

    Thanks, Kaye.

    Once again, you have laid it all our succinctly and compellingly.

    Enough to make you weep. If he doesn’t lose the election by a clear margin, then the electorate deserves him!

  5. Mr Bronte ALLAN

    Well said Ms Lee! It only gets worse by the day (hour?) in listing all the things failed from marketing SloMo is doing/has done! Franky, i am sick & tired of hearing just how bad is this fuck wit, he HAS to go! His “handling” (sic) of the whole Corona virus epidemic is enough to make me sick, not to mention all the other lies & untruths, etc, he has said in the last few years.

  6. GL

    I get the feeling that Scummo is morphing into a paranoid micromanaging tin pot dictator with delusions of grandeur before our very eyes.

  7. Terence Mills

    Anastasia Palecek told Queenslanders that expert medical advice had told her that the current surge in COVID was likely to peak in late January and thus it was prudent and sensible to defer schools returning until mid February.

    Evidently Morrison didn’t get the same advice or if he did, he ignored it.

    Have you noticed how he no longer has the Chief Medical Officer attend media briefings ?

  8. Kaye Lee

    The role of government is to recognise risk and mitigate it, prioritise need and allocate resources accordingly, provide regulatory protection from the exploitation of rampant capitalism, provide a safety net for the poor and vulnerable, ensure equitable provision of utilities and infrastructure as well as access to universal healthcare and education, a robust and independent judiciary and protection from aggression, both internal and external. They also need to be a good global citizen that plays a constructive role in collective action, facilitates diplomatic dialogue and respectful relationships, and commits to adherence to international law.

    Transparency, accountability, honesty, integrity….

    Setting a standard we would be proud for our children to follow…..

    I weep for what could so easily be.

  9. David Evans

    Three word slogan, “He’s A Prick”…….Ey jen?

  10. Canguro

    Good article, good comments. I note that the PM’s ‘mentor’ Brian Houston is in the news, again, and as usual, cast in an unfavourable light, re. the unmasked close gathering of the gulled at a Hillsong singalong… even Domicron felt moved to utter his concern.

    A recent road trip had me staying in a series of motels in outback NSW and at one of these stays I turned on the room’s TV (by choice I’m not a television viewer) and flicking through the channels I paused for a while, call it curiosity, to watch the maculate spinmeister at work. Frankly speaking, he seemed malodorous,,, raspy-voiced, faux pony-tailed, overweight & paunched… all that good living at the parishioners’ expense taking its toll … and spinning bullshit in the time-honoured fashion of a snake-oil salesman. How people fall for these hucksters is beyond me, but clearly Scummo thinks that Houston is a man of integrity and a truth-teller… or does he? … is it just another cynical element of Scummo’s predilection for transactional benefit?

  11. John Hanna

    Protection of the people is seemingly limited to the purchase of military hardware, no power projection from RAT tests.

  12. New England Cocky

    @Kaye Lee: ”Transparency, accountability, honesty, integrity…. ” Those a big words, difficult to spell, and even harder to live up to …. which is why the next edition of the Macquarie Dictionary will delete them from the language ….. at the direction of Canberra.

  13. Kaye Lee

    Kristina Keneally came up with a new one today to describe the Djokovic debacle…..Hawkward.

  14. Terence Mills

    Appears that the Hillsong Youth gathering was not a festival but a re-education camp where young people are brainwashed (and sold CD’s and T Shirts).

    Doesn’t sound at all healthy to me !

  15. corvusboreus

    Cangaro,
    A currently appropriate title for Brian Houston (CEO of Hillsong Oz) is ‘the defendent’.

    The leisure-suited prosperity pastor is currently on trial facing allegations of concealing the serial rape of children.

    Scomo is yet to provide us with Jen’s empathic insights into the matter of his moral guru’s ongoing criminal trial as an accused accessory to pedophilia.

  16. Max Gross

    Evil is as evil does. Morrison is not a follow of Christ but of Mammon… and Satan!!!

  17. JudithW

    “Presumably thought poor people wouldn’t have the resources to challenge”…
    Heard a similar story from one at the coalface about an application for super on grounds of hardship. One wealthy male granted release, one single mum release refused. Rationale – he had the financial means to fight the decision!

  18. Terence Mills

    Here’s another slogan :

    Make Australia Scott Free

  19. wam

    Kaye,
    I can see Yaron reading this and writing a raft of election speeches announcing that scummo has a plan for each of your points.
    ps
    Cangaru,
    30 seconds of channel 74 at any section of 24/7 should show any human being that these people are charlatans. My last giggle was – send in ‘rising’ donations and get bibles, with various explanatory CDs, DVDs.
    pps
    Religious freedom should not be secret what scummo believes on topics should be public knowledge.
    I would like to know pentecostal views on menstruation?

  20. Johnyperth.

    It’s he Consecutive way.
    It’s they way and no other!!!

  21. Consume Less

    Can only hope that us aussie sheepies vote the scumbags out. Baaaaaaa vote out baaaaa Scomo.

  22. Michael Taylor

    We have a six week delay for our cat’s annual shots because half of the staff at the vets are in isolation.

    Last night’s wild storm fried our modem (because of power surges) and as so many staff at our ISP are in isolation it’ll be at least a ten day delay before a new one can be delivered.

    Supermarket shelves are half empty because of staff shortages along the supply chain due to – you guessed it – them being in isolation.

    Someone needs to tell Scotty he’s dreaming if he thinks that schools reopening will run smoothly.

    Maybe he has been told … but he’s just not listening.

  23. GL

    Of course he wouldn’t listen to you, you aren’t a picture of an eagle that a magic beadered sky fairy talks to Saint Scummo of Selective Deafness. He always eagely awaits for new things to be transmitted to him from the bird of pray. No, I’m not apologising.

  24. Kaye Lee

    Michael,

    I know. I had a convo with a friend last night about how the government itself expects 10% of the workforce to be out of action and how that cannot be covered at a school. She said but 10% of the kids would be off too. But the problem with that is those kids will be scattered between all the classes so don’t free up any staff. Do they start each day with a huge muster to count heads and devise a new timetable on the spot for the day each and every day for each kid and teacher?

    They need to prepare for a staggered return and a combo of online learning ….at least for a couple of weeks…but they aren’t.

  25. Trevor

    Not Listening.

    morrison has form.

    Sacked from Tourism Australia cz couldnt work with the board,

    Sacked from Tourism NZ cz couldnt work with the board of directors.

    Morrison has lots of non listening form,

    Morrisons’s God does his listening,

  26. Michael Taylor

    Kaye, I’m surrounded with people like that.

    Young bloke next door was lamenting at the state of the country but he saw the bright side as at least Labor aren’t in power because… they can’t manage the economy. 🤦🏻‍♂️

    And I have an elder friend who says what a great job Morrison has done in handling the pandemic. Again… 🤦🏻‍♂️

    I’m beyond arguing.

  27. Stephengb

    Canguro
    “is it just another cynical element of Scummo’s predilection for transactional benefit”?

    Do you mean he uses people for his own entrainment?

    Yes he does because that is exactly what a narcissist does !

  28. andy56

    nothing says stupid more than somebody who has no doubts.

  29. andy56

    besides, the liberals as a whole have fucked us over many times because ” never labour ideas”. Scotty is following in the same footsteps through the pig shit.

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