Last time I mentioned doing an analysis of a scathing Op-Ed that Catherine Cusack penned for The Guardian. The reference to Emile Zola’s critique of the Dreyfus conviction seems fitting since Cusack has accused The Lodge Occupant of destroying the Liberal Party. Let us take a look at this piece.

Introduction: The Past and Robert Menzies

Cusack begins her piece by making reference to the fact that she and Senator Wells typically do not see eye-to-eye. However, Cusack does endorse Wells’ ‘character assessment’ of The Lodge Occupant. Cusack then proceeds to go back to the original roots of the Liberal Party by bringing up its patron saint, Robert Menzies, saying

The inspirational party of Robert Menzies, whose photo today is affixed to a multitude of policies and statements that bear zero resemblance to the character and values of those tens of thousands of Australians, who formed the Liberals after the second world war.

Lest we dismiss this as a No True Scotsman fallacy, I think it is true that the Liberal Party has changed radically since the days of Menzies. This man was a conservative, yes, but that term too has changed. Cusack says as much when she describes the Menzies Era as follows

Robert Menzies invested in the CSIRO, universities and schools, and spoke with great intellectual power about the role of education and science in powering a modern Australia. These values have been totally abandoned by the Morrison government.

Remarkable, is it not? A Liberal Prime Minister who invested in science and education and saw them as a means of creating a modern Australia? Now Menzies had his flaws and the past is invariably remembered as better than it was. But the idea that a Liberal Prime Minister could actually invest in science and did not see education as the enemy is quite extraordinary. How times have changed.

You Were Doing So Well: Cusack Goes off The Rails

No Op-Ed piece is without its flaws, and former MLC Cusack delivers a howler with this gem

The Liberal party has no interest group like trade unions (Labor) or environmentalists (Greens). No, we exist for our values and ideas only.

Pick yourself up off the floor and we can continue. The Liberal Party has no vested interest groups? The coal industry, the gas industry, property developers, the Business Council? The idea that the Liberal Party has no interest groups is absurd. She even went one step further than the usual hypocritical stance of ‘it is ok when we do it’ to say ‘we do not do it at all’. Valid as her criticism of Morrison, which we turn to now, is, this statement is crap.

Cusack Goes After Morrison, Part One: The Pre-Selection of Craig Kelly

Cusack begins her account of The Lodge Occupant and his actions inside the Liberal Party of NSW like this

I thought forcing moderates to vote for Craig Kelly in Hughes prior to the last election was the worst. But he [Morrison] has outdone himself engineering a federal intervention to jump over the organisation [NSW branch of the Lliberal Party] all together. Yes, he got what he wanted – at the expense of destroying our rules-based selection system and disgusting virtually every member of the NSW division.

Morrison did, as you may recall, intervene before the 2019 election to save Craig Kelly from pre-selection. The latter process is what the Americans call a primary: an inter-party contest to determine the election candidate. Mr Kelly left the Liberal Party within eighteen months of the intervention. Evidently a well-spent splitting of the ranks there, Lodge Occupant.

The case of Craig Kelly is but one example of The Lodge Occupant manipulating the selection process of the Liberal Party to ‘get his way’. The concept of ‘parachuting in’ candidates is nothing new (Kristina Kenneley to Bennelong, Warrane Mundene etc). But these appear to be ‘hank-picked’ candidates to suit Morrison as an individual, whatever the consequences for the party. The process is, just for a change, about him. Politicians are egos on legs, but Morrison is that on steroids.

Cusack Goes After Morrison, Part Two: The Climate Debate

As an MLC from the Northern Rivers, a region recently devastated by floods, one might expect Ms Cusack to be vocal on climate change. She does not disappoint, and even the media comes in for a serve. She says

The climate change fight has divided and just exhausted many of us in the NSW Liberals. And sitting here in the flood-ravaged northern rivers I can only deplore how much time has been lost.

Somehow the federal Liberal party, encouraged by the Murdoch press, has delayed the urgent need for climate change action by at least 15 years. To give you an idea as to how completely anti-intellectual and stupid this is, just read Andrew Bolt’s opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph last week saying it was “woke warmists” (climate change activists) like Tim Flannery who caused Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Scathing, is it not? Bolt is a renowned anti-intellectual, taking the seemingly standard right-wing position of ‘anything I don’t like is the cause of [insert current tragedy here]’, so this is nothing new. But the point here is Ms Cusack, a Liberal, accurately decrying the utter lack of action on climate change. She does not go so far as to use the C-word (corruption), but the message is clear: Morrison’s inaction on climate change is inexcusable. Hear hear.

Cusack Goes After Morrison, Part Three: Partisan Relief Funding

I referenced this briefly last time, but it bears repeating. The Lodge Occupant played partisan games with public disaster funding. Ms Cusack does not allow this to slide, excoriating Morrison with these words

Scott Morrison’s brazen attempt to fund flood victims in a Nationals seat and exclude flood victims in a Labor seat that I happen to live in was just too much. I cannot deny we are all overwrought here, witnessing so much suffering. My bullshit tolerance levels are at zero. To see the self-serving ruthless bullying that has increased inside the Liberal party spill over into public policy…is simply intolerable.

There are several things with which one does not play politics: the military, health, education, disaster relief. These are things that cross, or should cross, partisan lines. The current regime has played politics with all of these things, but Ms Cusack’s focus is disaster relief. To see partisanship creep in to the assignment of disaster relief funds was simply too much for her; rightly so.

Conclusion: Why do you do This?

Why are Scott Morrison’s politics so Machievelian? What causes him to play politics with seeming third rails? Why is he so ruthless, even among his nominal allies?

A large part of the answer I think comes in the title of a book about Morrison that I am soon to start reading. The book is The Game: A Portrait of Scott Morrison by Sean Kelly. The title says much: Morrison conceives of politics as a game. Well what is the object of a game? To win. To win by whatever means necessary. You do what you have to do. Sanctified by god (as he would phrase it), any and all actions he takes, no matter how many people they hurt, are justified because you play a game to win.

This ruthless, savage brute with no conscience has no place anywhere near power in a civilised society.