Scott Morrison isn’t a racist. But he will ruthlessly pursue whatever he considers will give him political advantage.
Remember the arm around Turnbull? An embrace that had something of the Godfather kiss to it. Morrison’s relationship with race and ethnicity has a similar feel about it.
He will cultivate relationships with certain groups and people. Then change hats and demonise whole cohorts of others to create a political narrative.
In 2011, it was reported that Morrison urged the shadow cabinet to capitalise on the electorate’s growing concerns about “Muslim immigration”, “Muslims in Australia” and the “inability” of Muslim migrants to integrate, as an issue on which the Opposition should concentrate its political attack.
The article also referenced Morrison’s comments on the cost of asylum-seeker funerals and his role in the controversial decision to cut a Howard government program to fund schools in Indonesia, reporting “colleagues are privately questioning whether he is trying to pursue an anti-Muslim political strategy unilaterally.”
When Morrison pandered to the history culture war crowd, putting down the Black Lives Matter protesters and claiming there had been no slavery in Australia, he enraged the Indigenous community.
“Morrison is utilising Trump’s dangerous and divisive rhetoric founded on racism and elitism by implying that the whole history of Indigenous struggle and culture in Australia is subservient to the white history and white culture of Australia.”
It isn’t personal with Scott – it’s all strategic.
Brian Houston went from being a close personal friend, mentor and spiritual guide, to ‘I haven’t seen him in years’, basically overnight. What was once seen as something for the cameras to lap up was now denied.
Morrison’s denials of his part in taking down Michael Towke in his original preselection have as much credibility as his denials that he rubbished electric vehicles before the last election.
As has been shown in the NSW Liberal preselection debacle, Morrison will do anything to get and retain power.
He’s not racist, but he willingly exploits the racism of others. Scott looks proudly on the success of his demonisation and hostage holding of “illegal” immigrants.
In late 2016, Morrison’s successor as Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, in talking about gang violence and the threat of terrorism in Australia, said Malcolm Fraser made mistakes in bringing “some people” in in the 1970s and we were paying the price for that now.
When pressed about who he meant, Dutton singled out people of Lebanese-Muslim background and pushed for tougher immigration laws – all part of the national security drum beat(-up).
As Concetta Fierravanti-Wells said, Morrison will run with the pack and hunt with the hounds. He has no moral compass as shown by him providing the Murdoch press with private texts from another world leader to try to show he wasn’t a liar. Now he is seen as not only a liar but a pariah.
Morrison isn’t racist but he has no hesitation about throwing anyone to the wolves if he thinks it will save his hide.
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I would trust Morrison in one area only, that being he is a totally untrustworthy grub. So, lying is natural, true, the front and face and persona. Anything may follow, revelation, accusation, bleating defence, changing tack, whims, and, more LIES.
Astute observation KL. He’s simply amoral. If converting to Islam would win him the election he’d a least give it serious thought.
Whatever is at Morrison’s core it’s rotten and it’s terminal. No escape in the end.
he has as much conviction in his regular denials as he has in his original statements, neither of which reflect what he actually stands for, if anything
it may well be true that he has never knowingly told a lie as he possibly believes whatever comes out of his mouth at the time,
but I lean towards him being a totally unscrupulous manipulator of data to suit his personal narrative
All without the option of absolution, at least Dom gets that.
ScoMo’s allegiance to sporting teams is also transactional – and that’s sacrilege!
https://junkee.com/scott-morrison-rugby-afl-teams/309077
Using other peoples racism for personal political advantage surely makes him an accessory after the fact Or racist by default .Slime appears attractive by comparison
John Hanna,I’m sure the Church could accomodate him for a suitable pile of baksheesh…all legitimate currencies accepted at the daily exchange rate.(minus a handling fee)
Scotty would also be horrified to be labeled a misogynist – he loves his wife and daughters and has promoted some compliant women to the ministry (provided they drop their claims of bullying). He “gets it” (once Jen explains it in “imagine if” terms)
I am not sure that Fran Bailey, Gillian Triggs, Christine Holgate, Julia Banks, Brittany Higgins, Grace Tame, Bridget Archer, Lucy Gichuhi, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Julia Gillard, Julie Bishop, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, the women who marched4justice, the new mothers who were labeled double-dippers, the single mothers who are encouraged to buy a house to avoid rental stress, the women fleeing domestic violence who cannot access emergency housing, the Indigenous women who are locked up for unpaid fines and then have their children taken away, nurses, teachers, aged and child care workers ….(apologies to the many many women I have left off that list)…..would agree.
I’m sure he doesn’t hate women. But I also feel he uses them, often as a shield. Once again, it’s always political.
““Don’t pre-judge me. I know what my values are,” he said.”
https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/beyond-the-pale-pm-rocked-by-new-claims-he-sought-to-exploit-antimuslim-sentiment/news-story/386532313ae3fc5142aed3b1933551b2
No, we don’t have to pre-judge you at all not after the last 9 years of thuggery, lying, cheating, being the greed driven leader of a totally corrupt party, dirt meister, back stabbing, desperate to be liked, and morals free bastard of the first water. A sneering smirkaiju who doesn’t care one single jot about the peasants except to keep grinding them into the ground. You have no values beyond Scummo making sure Scummo can stay in charge and in power. I know there are many more have left out a lot of other opprobrious remarks to describe the sewer dweller but it’s time to do other things, like start Graham Masterton’s latest book.
Morrison is a modern day Machiavelli. Unfortunately for him the people he has used and abused along the way are still alive to tell the tale …and those chickens are now coming home to roost. Pity you can’t have them poisoned or slain any more.
Rubbish Kaye Lee……if as you say “Morrison…….has no hesitation about throwing anyone to the wolves if he thinks it will save his hide.” …. then if he throws an ethnic group under the bus that IS racist
You are far too generous Kaye Lee. So when PP and GG imply, ”when his lips are moving Scummo is probably telling lies”. The Turdball episode demonstrates that explicitly. As for ”bully” and ”misogynist” the many independent statements from ”victims” indicate that ”where there is smoke there is frequently fire”.
He may not be racist, but here’s one example of his use of racism for political advantage – against a Lebanese man – that disgusted me:
I do understand the sentiment that someone who is willing to exploit racism is, by default, racist. I just think Scott is just as likely to embrace multiculturalism as he is to reject it. He’s an equal opportunity exploiter. A user. A chameleon. It’s all about the announcement, the photo. There is no conviction in any direction other than what will give him perceived advantage at the time.
Why keep refugees hostage for nine years and then release them on the eve of an election? Did they all of a sudden find humanity? Or did they just want to neutralise the voice of people like Craig Foster during a campaign?
Kaye Lee
Great article, thank you
You said “he loves his wife and daughters”, but does he ?
As you rightly point out he is not adverse to using anything or anyone to get what he clearly craves
He is a narcissist, he loves the adoration that they give to him but I understand that narcissists will just as quickly discard anyone (even a wife and children) if they stop adoring the said narcissist.
Stephengb,
I think his love for family may be the one genuine thing about Morrison. The way he clinged to Jenny during that 60 minutes interview was revealing.
That does not stop him from exploiting them however. Who decided the ukelele was a good idea….or reading his daughter’s poem on Australia Day? Must we trawl through Jenny’s medical record to justify funding? Or be inundated with family photos by the official photographer who must be a constant presence at meal time? He was also willing to let Jenny wear the blame for the Hawaii trip which was less than gallant of him.
Stroking the racist underbelly of Australians, as Alan Jones did in instigating the Cronulla riots, is beyond contempt. Morrison has deviously done the same to create a planned and well executed outcome that he has personally benefited from. Morrison is a master manipulator and is complicit in any racially motivated results that came his way.
As Concetta FW said of him : he lacks a moral compass and is surprised when others point this out – just like Trump he uses religion as a marketing tool and sees nothing wrong with that.
There are many like him in business and obviously politics. He sees absolutely nothing wrong with smashing the pre-selection process in NSW which is fundamentally democratic but to his type democracy is only a good thing when it works for him. And as it hasn’t been working for him he’s quite prepared to trash the system.
He is now out selling a very deficient so called free trade agreement with India. It means as much as the one that Tony Abbott got all excited about with his China FTA which was just another photo opportunity.
Clearly the Liberal party won’t sack him prior to the election so it comes down to the Australian people to do the job.
I read a book years ago by a South African professor – I can’t remember his name or the title of the book – about Aboriginal players in the AFL.
One former Collingwood captain confessed that whilst he wasn’t racist, his coach thought it’d be a fabulous idea if the team would racially vilify Indigenous opponents with the hope it’d put them off their game.
Racism is a weapon.
AIM comments section is becomming unreadable off my Laptop. So many words and letters missing totally hopeless.
David, take a screenshot and email it to theaimn@internode.on.net
I’ll send it on to our web developer.
Sorry, I have to disagree on this point. Morrison has proven himself to be a thoroughly offensive, uncompromising racist on many occasions! In Morrison’s insular little world, UNLESS you are a white, alpha male, Presbyterian swinging d*ck, you are a second class citizen! The bone-idle Sloth Morrison lives in a parallel universe of grandiose delusions where even his closest colleagues distrust and despise him! The fact that a growing number of the most reprehensible miscreants in our nation’s history, in Morrison’s own putrid party of career parasites) – the very people who “supposedly” know this unconscionable, totally depraved monster the best – cannot stand him is a RED FLAG WARNING!
Not only is this PATHOLOGICAL LIAR, Z-rated thuggish bully and condescending misogynist, a snivelling yellow-bellied coward who runs away and hides from any level of responsibility during fire, floods or other national disasters, the ONLY reason this treacherous, back-stabbing tyrant rose to the top was due to his ruthless betrayal of his OWN colleagues and “friends” (just ask Michael Towke, Malcolm Turnbull and Brian Houston)! Morrison has revealed himself to be a thoroughly reprehensible, totally corrupt, nauseating bible-thumping hypocrite! Morrison sadistically feeds off other people’s pain, takes credit for OTHER people’s hard work and achievements and maintains a smug, stratospheric ego which is totally unwarranted considering his appalling lack of achievement and his dodgy “history” which reveals that he has been sacked or “mysteriously” moved on from every job he has ever failed to keep before he became the worst, most non-achieving, corrupt and vengeful PM in our history!, Morrison has all the foresight of Mr Magoo (sans glasses), is as shallow as a carpark puddle, is about as fake as a $3 note and has all the toxicity of a box full of funnel web spiders!
There is absolutely NOTHING good one can find to say about Morrison – he is about as loathsome, despicable, corrupt and self-serving as one could find! In fact, if there was an Olympic Games for the absolute WORST, most depraved, totally corrupt and callously inhumane regime you could find, Morrison and his gang of misogynistic, lying, self-serving street thugs would win Gold, Silver and Bronze medals in EVERY event!
Take care folks, there are those on the conservative side of politics who are blaming Labor for a dirt file attacking Morrison’s character – Trade Minister Dan Tehan tried this on this morning on ABC RN and Patricia Farvelas had to pull him up and point out that the character criticisms were coming from the conservative side of politics, from within Morrison’s own party.
We need to keep focused, this attack on Morrison is coming from his own side of politics.
Kathryn, one of your posts is scheduled for the morning.
In 2010, Brian Loughnane suggested now Senator James McGrath for the job of running the LNP’s federal campaign in Queensland.
In 2011 the then 38 year old campaign director was revealed as the architect behind a scheme to pay disgruntled former Labor staffer and candidate Robert Hough for dirt on government MPs.
The LNP dirt file detailed a minister’s epilepsy and childhood adoption, claims about some politicians’ sexuality, sex lives, drinking habits and health matters, and included details of the schools of the children of government MPs.
Senior LNP figures including president Bruce McIver and aspiring premier Campbell Newman denied knowing about the dirt files until The Courier-Mail raised the matter.
They said LNP campaign director James McGrath and state director Michael O’Dwyer had been “strongly reprimanded” for commissioning the $3075 research but would not be sacked.
Far from this shameful episode ending McGrath’s political career as many suggested it would, we now see him top of the Senate ticket in Qld, much to Amanda Stoker’s chagrine.
On scomo’s “moral compass”:
I’ve driven over potholes with greater depth and more substantial stuffing.
I’ve stirred up pond-benthos that offered purer clarity of vision.
Even if scomo doesn’t personally use racist products, i reckon he’d happily mount a bank to peddle their wares (if offered sufficient potential for sufficient percentage profit)
Ps, remoinder:
Scomo was cool with his ‘spiritual mentor’, B Houston, being on charges facing criminal trial under Australuan law (commencing Novembet, after repeated legalistic delays) on charges of failing to report knowledge of serial child rape.
It was only when Hillsong chose to ditch uber-pastor Houston (over unrelated sub-criminal misconduct) that PM scomo chose to cut ties with his former spiritual guru.
Disagree on racism part; most Australians express antipathy towards other types, or accept it unconsciously through repetition, on a daily basis. Exemplified in media by everpresent dog whistling of refugees, immigrants, NOM, population growth, international students, Indians, Chinese, Muslims etc.
The Cafe con leche Republicans tried to warn the GOP a decade ago how they were being led into a white nativist cul de sac by allowing the late white nationalist John ‘passive eugenics’ Tanton (on original fossil fuel supported ZPG with Paul ‘Population Bomb’ Ehrlich, Washington Post 1977) to access Congress via lobbyists in calling for immigration restrictions (as an environmental ‘hygiene’ issue), acted as the muse for Steve Bannon, visited Oz to liaise with local operators and admired the white Oz policy.
Fast forward to the NSW state election the other year with calls by Premier &/or PM for reduced (undefined) ‘immigration’ on the basis of ‘carrying capacity’ (preacher Malthus centuries ago) and ‘take a breather’ (Tanton’s Witan Memos according to SPLC & Cafe con Leche Republicans; now locked up in University of Michigan’s Bentley Library).
Basically underpins white Christian nationalism and ‘the great replacement’; nice…..
Crow god of the north wind, that Scummo should even allude to the hypocritical fraudster and carpetbagging shill Houston as a ‘spiritual mentor’ speaks spades in terms of his transactional approach to relationships; any fool with one eye open to reality could see that the Hillsong clique are a bunch of money-grabbing androids devoid of anything approaching humanity and compassion, let alone wisdom or spirituality. What that says about Scummo, that he should ally himself with these hucksters for his own advancement, is beyond contempt, vomitous actually.
AJS,
Yup,’population growth’ is not a concern, no biospheric stresses at all are showing at our current stocking rates, so further increases in global Homo sapien population will manifest little to no further impacts upon the skin-scum of the fragile rock in space that sustains our existence.
Also, yup ‘‘environmental hygiene’ is a completely irrelevant ‘concern’ impurely borne from purely racist constructs, because we, as temporary custodians of this continent (+surrounding isles & archipelagos) have absolutely no duty to prevent facilitating any further extinctions of regionally specific biota.
Ps, Methinks you are an absolute environmental ignoramus.
Yup, population growth has duped ageing Australians for two decades, left and/or right, happy to divert environment issues from fossil fuels and blame immigrants; there is neither science nor compelling evidence of any environmental linkage apart from Malthus/Galton, ZPG, media, BTL and MPs.
If you think you are informed why shoot the messenger and not present something substantive?
Mystery in Oz, who actually has any expertise in demography and population growth in public domain versus wealth of demographic research offshore, includes Australian data e.g. OECD trends, that are ignored by local media deferring to the suboptimal ABS UNPD derived data, for nativist headlines?
How smart are Australians when an environmentally minded German immigrant student said that e.g. SPA Sustainable Population Australia, claims to be an environmental NGO but mostly complain about ‘immigrants’; one would guess being German, she is not their target (when influenced by John Tanton…).
Here’s the WP source from ’77 on the fossil fuel supported ZPG, inc. Rockefeller Bros., Ford & Carnegie Foundations with Tanton (Bannon’s muse) et al: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/05/08/anti-immigration-campaign-begun/0f5c0e7b-5939-46a9-9914-887b830a12fa/
Most recent research, Bricker & Ibbitson’s ‘Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline. Rather than growing exponentially (like we hear in Oz from a high profiel public fugure), they argue, the global population is headed for a steep decline’ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37585564-empty-planet
They are supported by The Lancet which released a research article (July 2020) explaining why, i.e. crashing fertility rates in ‘The Lancet: World population likely to shrink after mid-century, forecasting major shifts in global population and economic power’ https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/913077
Finally, if anyone can understand basic maths & graphs (year 9-10?), the OECD presents clear trends, and opportunities including fact that working age population has passed the demographic sweet spot already, due to an ageing population; the only population growth we have is in oldies. See here for working age data which should dismiss the claims that ‘immigrants’ are holding back wage rises, but not helped by our now low union membership and workplace coverage https://data.oecd.org/chart/6FqH
The immigration & population growth obsessions are both a proxy white Oz policy and pure PR rubbish i.e. ‘greenwashing’ fossil fuels & nativism, based on the old eugenics movement but presented as science; US linked think tanks would be pleased with Australians for delaying any substantive actions or policies?
So a Gates-commissioned study is the lower outlier of population projections (they assumed continued acceleration of fertility rate decline) with a predicted peak of under 10 billion around 2050.
Most other study conclusions put the peak higher and later (12,000,000,000ish sometime after 2100 is the top-end guess).
9.6 billion is a lot more than 7.9 billion, a number which is already starting to make planetary systems groan.
Also understand that, accelerating levels of sea rise (globey-warm icy-melt) mean a lot of currently viable human habitat will become marginal or unviable, especially as warming climate encourages evermore ‘unprecedented’ storms and floods.
Facts: every new human born is immediately tagged and targeted by corporate marketing as a consumer.
Human over-consumption (esp petrochemical) is a primary driving factor behind the unfolding crisis of biospheric systems failures.
Attempts at reduction in gross collective consumption becomes more gruelling as the consuming herd gets larger.
Remember the biomass figures? If 7.9 billion humans represents 36% of terrestrial vertebrate biomass, what percentage will 9.6 billion constitute?
More to add re fossil fuels, but duty calls.
Corvus out
religion is not a race, jews, muslims and xstians are not races. scummo and the vast majority of my religious friends are, at least closet, bigots because they have their god. They do not see the same god like atheists ‘jibes’ of god being on the ukraine and russian sides with his usual 2 bob each way trick. But like bully, racism is a nice easy word whose meaning was useful to the Australian Aborigines but, in its wider context, no longer. ps Eorry, grumpy, amoral is ignorance, this man is immoral, the rabbott was amoral and not responsible. But scummo knows, from long term experience, what he is doing. This morning I watched three simpletons tear albo’s campaign apart using, not what Albo said, but what scummo said what albo said. WTF are we in for???
pps
corvus, soon they and us will be chipped??
The vast majority of the countries with the highest fertility rates are in Africa. According to a paper published by the UN, Africa’s high rates can be attributed to “low contraception use, early and universal marriage, the high fertility rate, early childbearing, childbearing across much of a woman’s reproductive life span, and high social values placed on childbearing. ”
Get religion out of reproduction. Make contraception easily accessible. Keep girls in school. Increase female participation in the work force. Make arranged marriages illegal. Make concrete plans to care for an aging population. Lift people out of poverty. Make men share in child rearing responsibilities.
We must urgently prioritise reducing consumption, Incentivise and facilitate recycling. Make manufacturers responsible for end of life disposal and they will get very creative about recycling and reusing. Train people to fix things. Change patent law so new discoveries can’t be bought and buried. Reduce and reuse packaging. Make waste sorting and collection easier. Get community groups and schoolkids involved. More research on biodegradable alternatives. Greater efficiency standards for buildings, appliances, vehicles. Have a sustainability component in pricing.
Kaye, here’s a new one…
A bit over 50 years ago I was talking to a mate’s sister who had just returned to Adelaide after working on some islands north of PNG.
The islanders had absolutely no idea what caused pregnancy, and would not accept the biological description and thus the need for birth control.
If a woman fell pregnant it was considered a gift from whatever god they worshipped.
Catholics have based their faith on the same ignorance Michael. Virgin birth? Uh huh…..
Is that only limited to Catholics Kaye?
KL,
But didn’t you know that the provision of family planning services for brown-skinned females of the sub-sahara is actually a Rockefeller derived form of racist eugenics?
Same as my ‘environmental hygeine’ concerns over the ecological effect of human population increase (local & global) are not conclusions based on evidential observation, but instead are mere manifestations of my white nationalistic tendencies, which have been absorbed by osmosis through exposure to the messaging of Tranton/Bannon etc.
It explains why my commentary input on the subject of immigration mostly consists of mindless race-baiting dog-whistles directed against swarthy-skinned fugitives from peril.
Ps, there is a political party that includes proffered policy of ‘right to repair’, with supporting facilitatory incentive in the form of community repair centres.
Sustainable Australia Party.
https://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/policies
Apparently they are a bunch of racists providing a smokescreen for fossil fuel interests.
Comments indicate that BTL has wandered off topic somewhat. Here is my two cents’ worth. Morrison will use Australians’s racism to his own purposes. He is probably laughing at all of us, along with the rest of the lying Liberals.
As for population explosions and exploitation, i have taken note of news reports of refugees from Syria to Ukraine. What upsets me is to see women prematurely aged by constant childbearing. Hoards of kids that they can neither support or educate. The answer lies in education, women’s rights and contraception. It is almost too late to tackle world population without the mass starvation or pandemic to assist us. Not a pretty picture is it?
Women are active participants in reproduction and not just because of the part jealous religious nutters seek to cut off. My grandmother had 11 living children from 1893 till my mum in 2019.
In the mid-50s, I was invited to tea, at the catholic family, living in the other half of our Woodville West trust house. There were two sittings at the table. The first was the father, me and the 8 older high school students and workers. We then went to the sitting room whilst the mother and the other 12 kids ate.
What an history, we must stop that happening to non-europeans, eh kate?
There are two stories I wish were true:
The Sabine women and the Aborigine who explained to bjelke that the rainbow serpent was more believable that god impregnating a virgin with himself.
“we must stop that happening to non-europeans, eh kate?”
No wam, we must stop that happening to non-males.
Your grandmother may have been an “active” participant in reproduction but was she a willing participant? What choice did she have? Those were the days when a woman was legally considered the property of her husband, contraception didn’t exist, and girls education was focused on home duties. A man was legally entitled to rape his wife.
Men are usually the ones who want to build their tribe. They might be less enthusiastic if they played an equal role in caring for the fruit of their loins.
I don’t often disagree with anything you write, Kaye, but your narrow, prescriptivist definition of ‘racist’ is one where I do, quite strongly.
A person who deliberately chooses to follow, promote and use racist policies, for whatever reason, is racist. Whatever he might personally think – and none of us is in a position to say categorically what that might be – his behaviour is racist. Someone whose behaviour is racist is, indeed, a racist person. Cynical (sorry, B Sullivan, but until you can provide a suitable alternative for the modern usage of that word I shall stick with it), amoral, uncaring, misogynistic, ableist,self-absorbed, smug, sanctimonious, dishonest to the nth degree and so on without a doubt.
And racist.
leefe,
I do have a lot of sympathy for your argument.
Personally, I think Morrison is even worse than a racist in that he will abuse or befriend based purely on what he thinks will advantage him. He’s an unprincipled user.
Less than three years ago, he was promoting himself as the peacemaker between China and the US.
https://www.pm.gov.au/media/where-we-live-asialink-bloomberg-address