Number 3 for 2022: Morrison is an “arsehole”, just ask his colleagues
We continue the countdown to our Top 5 most viewed articles in 2022. Number 3 goes to Kaye Lee for this article from February:
Morrison is an “arsehole”, just ask his colleagues
It seems whatever he does, Scott Morrison leaves a bevy of disgruntled colleagues in his wake.
An early job was with the Tourism Task Force where he was 2IC. After he jumped ship to join its main rival, Tourism Council Australia run by Bruce Baird, the TTF was unimpressed and changed its employment contracts to prevent others from “doing a Morrison”.
From there, Morrison moved on to the Office of Tourism and Sport in New Zealand. Within weeks, the tourism board’s three most senior figures – the chair, the deputy chair and the chief executive – were gone.
“I suspect it was just about power,” said board member Gerry McSweeney. “You had the meeting of two people [Morrison and Tourism Minister Mike McCully] who were very ambitious.”
The Auditor-General was scathing about Morrison’s role in commissioning PwC to conduct a secret review of the board and then recommending they be sacked.
“We were surprised by the vehemence and timing of this advice,” the auditor-general commented. “Mr Morrison was aware that the board’s directors (including the chairperson) had deliberately been excluded from the review process, as part of the terms of reference.”
When interviewed last year, McSweeney said of Morrison, “Picking off soft targets, seems to have been a career projection of your PM.”
McCully resigned over the scandal and, with a year still left on his contract, Morrison returned to Sydney in March 2000, where he took up a position as the state director of the NSW Liberal Party.
After four years in that role, in a move that reeked of political cronyism, Morrison was rewarded when Joe Hockey, then tourism minister, gifted him the $350,000-a-year job as chief executive of its newly created tourism body, Tourism Australia where he, once again, ran foul of the board.
Its members complained that he did not heed advice, withheld important research data, was aggressive and intimidating, and ran the government agency as if it were a one-man show.
Confident that John Howard would ultimately back him, Morrison reportedly boasted that if then tourism minister Fran Bailey got in his way, he would bring her down. When board members called for him to go, however, Bailey agreed, and soon it was Morrison who was on his way. “Fran despised him,” says an industry insider. “Her one big win was ousting Scott. His ego went too far.”
“He was an invisible MD, he wasn’t present, he wasn’t around, he wouldn’t know anyone’s names,” one long-time staffer said.
A subsequent report from the Auditor-General regarding three contracts worth $184 million may shed more light on the real reason Morrison’s contract was terminated a year early.
The audit report revealed that information had been kept from the board, procurement guidelines breached and private companies engaged before paperwork was signed and without appropriate value-for-money assessments.
Out of a job, Morrison found his next sinecure after being parachuted into Cook, the seat of his former boss, Bruce Baird. And even that was dodgy. He failed dismally in the preselection ballot until the Telegraph did a defamatory hatchet job on the successful candidate, Michael Towke, who was then disendorsed by the executive.
Purportedly a moderate, as the party lurched to the right under the leadership of Abbott, so too did Morrison. “Supreme opportunism,” scoffed one senior Liberal when asked about the one-time moderate’s confrontational approach on asylum seekers. The more publicity that came Scott Morrison’s way, the more hardline he became.
According to Niki Savva’s book about the spill that installed Morrison as leader, Plots and Prayers, at an April 2018 lunch Michael Keenan, who served as justice minister when Morrison was immigration minister, told his West Australian colleagues, including Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, Attorney-General Christian Porter and Mr Morrison’s chief ally Ben Morton, that Morrison was an “absolute arsehole“.
“Porter joined in, saying he did not think Morrison was a team player. Cormann said he had seen Morrison up close now, and, in his opinion, Dutton was better,” Savva wrote in her book.
Julia Banks described Morrison like “menacing controlling wallpaper” during the period where she decided to leave the Liberal party after Malcolm Turnbull was deposed as prime minister.
“It was the three months of Morrison’s leadership that … was definitely the most gut-wrenching, distressing period of my entire career.”
Leaked texts between Gladys Berejiklian and a current Liberal federal cabinet minister during the 2019-20 bushfires suggest they share that low opinion.
“In one, [Gladys] described you as a horrible, horrible person, going on to say she did not trust you, and you are more concerned with politics than people,” Peter Van Onselen said at the National Press Club on Tuesday.
“The minister is even more scathing, describing you as a fraud and ‘a complete psycho’.”
And who could forget the French president who didn’t mince his words about Morrison’s lack of integrity – he’s a liar.
These criticisms are all coming from people who have worked closely with Morrison, people from his own side of politics, people who are supposedly part of his “team”, and other world leaders.
I can only concur with their informed opinions.
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Return to home pageOne of our great mistakes, a disgraceful inadequate failure, Morrison is an unwiped, reeking, dripping, horrible anus. Get out!
@ PP: Not OUR GREAT MISTAKES”, but a reflection of the depth of despair in the ranks of the LIARBRAL party that has /had been abandoned by talented persons unwilling to accept the bastardry, misogyny and glowering incompetence of faction ”leaders” and FACTION GROUPS REPRESENTING ANY ENTITY EXCEPT Australian voters.
The title of ”Worst Prim Monster since Federation” should reasonably be passed to Scummo who made MacMahon, the previous title holder, look like an effective political genius.
Cocky, Michael West media, through its proprietor, asks for a royal commission into this bastard, who is said to have “sold off the farm” in secret deals to foreign multinationals while secretly sworn in as treasurer. It seems bluntly obvious that filthite Morrison is bluntly crooked, and selfishly focussed on future sinecures, rewards, patronage. The grateful, rented crooked politician..amongst former P M’s we have had two utter bastards, and Morrison is both of them..
I have always been of the opinion that arseholes are useful, in that they eject shite.
If shite has nowhere to go, it backs up and clogs the entire system.
Our ex pm is a busted arsehole, or as much use as one.
@ PP. I am certain that you are correct, but given what has come to light since his party’s demise, who would be dumb enough to hire him, even as a doormat?
I don’t reckon he could get a job as even a car-park attedant at hillsong.
So how, and why, does a person like this, unliked by all, and with no redeeming features or specific skilĺs and expertise, rise to the top wherever he goes?
I am looking forward to a thorough analysis of the processes behind the recruitment and promotion of this person. There must have been a lot of influential people who sponsored Morrison on his way to the leadership of the various Tourism bodies, and into and upwards in the Liberal Party.
I look forward to seeing these people exposed too
Yet another example of simplicity. exposing scummo’s character, proof of Kaye’s powerful words setting the bar.
She is numero uno and I can’t wait for 2 and 3.
Most arseholes when wiped leave the throne room. This busted arsehole should be locked forever in the can to exist in his own excrement.
i have gone beyond calling him names, i want him to pay. I want him to shed a tear over the fuckery he has performed . Its obvious the only thing he will repent over is a large financial impost, like make him bankrupt. We shouldnt let our niceness allow him to get away with it.
This piece of swill will engage into another venture, and it too will implode, his trail is shameful, but this swill is shameless. A man who’s DNA is so flawed, it beggars belief how he manages to again and again gain senior roles. Those that appointed this swill with his known history, they too exhibit a breathtaking lack of commonsense/intelligence …..so on it goes
King1394, well might we wonder how this turd floated to the surface of the effluent that is the LNP, lets assume that a few of them were worthy of public office, they can`t all be rotten to the core, at least one, Bridget Archer had the balls to vote with the government to censure Morriscum. That leaves the remainder who confused this arrogant, opinionated, narcissistic, under achieving, misogynistic, unprincipled, scheming, traitorous, lying, smirking God botherer with the Messiah, whatever baggage he had gathered along the way, might have been seen as strengths necessary for the leadership role, qualities that were absent in Turnbull. The priority was that the LNP must win another term on the treasury benches, this must be the only acceptable outcome, it must happen even if individuals have to hide their personal disdain for him. So by uniting behind this fellow, however distasteful that might be, by him succeeding, the prize is shared by all. Better the scent of treasury bench leather than the opposition benches, principles be damned.
When it came to the motion to censure this cretin, he, who overtook Billy McMahon for the title, worst ever Australian PM, only one, Bridget Archer, had the guts to support the motion, the best Karen Andrews could do was abstain from voting. It seems he still has power over the LNP has-beens’, do they think he is not finished, that he will return for a second time and they need to demonstrate loyalty now to profit later? Can they believe that showing loyalty would win them brownie points, that they are not fair weather friends, suppose it might satisfy the rusted ons, supporters in whose eyes he can do no wrong?
So now we have cuddly Pete Dutton, I was very pleased to see him take the reins, I sincerely wish him a long term as opposition leader, three election cycles would satisfy me.
How does a person like this attain leadership in the Liberal Party?
Moments ago read an article on Alternet titled ‘The Republican Party’s fate lies with con men like George Santos’.
In addition to being hyped into palpable hatred towards Democrats etc. by leveraging right wing media and Republicans themselves:
‘But it’s also destabilizing the party from within, because shady characters of all flavors now understand that no sin or crime is so great that it cannot be wiped away by running for office as a Republican. The result is a party full of cranks, chronic liars and petty criminals, a situation that gets worse every election cycle, as demonstrated by the Santos fiasco.’
Essential reading for as long as Saint Scotty the Saviour lounges on the backbench
Dutton won’t be there for long. There are already moves to try and find a safe seat for Frydenberg to be drafted back in to the game – evidently he is seen as the Liberals’ only hope for the future.
The question is, who will have to retire in Victoria to make room for Frydenberg and how can they dump Dutton without factional repercussions.
Morrison will be frogmarched out of the door at around the same time.
Quite an excruciating set of challenges !
Terry, they seem to have a fixation with dragging out political carcasses, hoping that the electorate will breathe life back into them.
They lassoed Howard into campaigning with Frydenberg and it failed.
The Libs have the attitude that “There was nothing wrong with our candidate. It was the electorate that got it wrong. We’ll find a better electorate.”
Ah but Jen and the girls still think the sun shines out of his arse. Even the old guy with the white beard up in the sky, still gazes benevolently on this turd. That’s why he’s still rakes in $200,000 for doing bugger all.
Yes, Andrew Smith (and others), how could they? Despite my rejoinder above on the primary objective, there remain a few matters lingering. Six steps in review of the LNP and leadership:
ONE: Jenny and the girls will be the better without him. With him canned and losing all pensions, entitlements and spoils of parliament, they will surely have enough to survive, unless of course they take counsel from numbskulls.
TWO. The slide of broad church. Through the power of tech, those from “the regions” slowly awakened to the realities of the “new world”, and the lies, misrepresentations and divisive guile of the corrupted grasping power-drunk conservatives that seek to ingratiate themselves by slagging “city folk” – those that devise technology, the marketers, insurers and bankers, the providers of tourist and traveller dollars, and constituents of “the market”. Understanding their interdependence, those from “the regions” are awakening to the fiddle of the corrupted conservatives – the real modern-day carpetbaggers.
The LNP “city folk” are either those living in an illusory past, naively then and now believing that should they rub up against, and talk the lingo of the “elite” that they may be afforded good fortune or even bling in an afterlife. And then there are the “powdered elite” who rank themselves above the political class, whilst in ante-chambers throwing them lollies and crumbs and mutterings of sinecures to be had by those who dutifully uphold their faith.
THREE. Who cares about the beginning of the end? Given the requirement to indulge their constituency, those of the class of meaningful politics fled under pressure from the inevitable invasion of rabid obsequious opportunists, usurers and grinning also-ran shopkeepers. It mattered not to their remnant illiterate from “the regions” nor the effete or powdered elite “city folk” that the invaders brought hateful, shouty, brutal conflict to the halls of power, after all, they figured that it was the behaviour that those low-brow socialists and their unionist thugs would understand.
FOUR: The attaining of leadership. The last of the effete class of political aspirants to have a go was Turnbull, a well-meaning innumerate naive nincompoop. And it cost him $1m+. But the envious invaders hated him, and it didn’t take them long to nail him to the cross, and replace him with the lunatic fat-headed jabbering evangelist from hell. The cane toad from the hill having taken hold, showed them the way to a new self-promoting constituency of feckless greed, and had them dancing to his tune. Down the gurgler.
FIVE: With Toad of Toad Hall in the driver’s seat, it was game over. Even the hateful invaders hated him. The preoccupation became the wrangling of survival in the entanglements of hate and mistrust till it burst.
SIX: Gone for broke and busted. When the LNP free-for-all became catch and kill your own, it could only end with the stench of bodies lying everywhere.
The effete and the powdered elite won’t dirty their hands or give a damn, they’ll just throw out a lure and wait it out for other invaders and loud-mouthed suckers.
What surprises me is that there are still a respectable % of the voting population who think he should have won.
There are still a large percent of the electorate who think that the LNP can do no wrong !
I know a few of my past colleagues who still believe that the LNP are the party that represents their interest’s, go figure !
Now, I wonder if Fraudenberg would consider a move to Sydney if a certain exPM was deselected for his current seat at the next election and it was promised to Joshie …