‘Morrison began by referencing a conversation with a friend, Clay Nelson – an American he says he met 10 years ago in New Zealand. Nelson’s father, Morrison informed us, was the first Elvis impersonator in history; we also learnt that he and his friends used to play pranks on each other by putting alligators in each others’ hunting cabins.

“Clay had a saying that he always used to say to people,” Morrison recalled.

“He was in sales, surprisingly. Clay would sit down with a client or a mate or a friend or whatever and first thing he’d always say to you was, ‘How can I help you win today?'”

The Sydney Morning Herald, February 17, 2016

Well, there ya go!

Scott Morrison has actually announced a policy. And it comes from the son of the first person to impersonate Elvis, which is sort of appropriate as Scott has been following in the footsteps of Joe Hockey, the first person to impersonate an Australian Treasurer. Well, as anybody knows, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and Mr Hockey must extremely flattered by Mr Morrison.

Some people might suggest that Morrison now has a policy on the GST, but I’m not sure it really counts because I don’t consider this a policy: “We could think about raising and/or extending its scope, but we’d only do that after an election and with lots of consultation and compensation, but it’s definitely on the table along with everything including the things we’ve ruled out, but now that you mention it, you’re probably right and it would need a lot of work and, well, really, is it worth it, my position is that yes, we should definitely leave it in the mix, and when you put it together with the words ‘electoral backlash’, I agree with Malcolm and we’re not going to change it all!”

His first policy is simple really; it involves asking “How can I help you win today?” and if the question is directed to Bill Shorten or the Labor Party, then the answer may well be, “Keep talking, Scotty, keep talking!”

However, I’m more disturbed by the short-sightedness of his policy. “How can I help you win today?” What about tomorrow, eh? Why isn’t he worried about helping me win tomorrow?

He seems out of step with the whole ideas boom thing:

As Malcolm Turnbull said:

“This not a one-off announcement. This is not the first and last word on innovation. This is a (sic) absolutely critical theme to ensure that we are always driving innovation …Because I promise you that is the future for… that is our future. It’s the future for our jobs and ours, (sic) our children and our grandchildren. Innovation is a big cultural measure, It’s something that we need to be better at in Australia and across the board. There’s a lot of levers being pulled here and there may well be more to come…There will be more to come, I’ve no doubt!”

So, it’s great to know that not only may there be more to come, but Malcolm the Magnificent has no doubt that there will be more to come because it’s not the first and last word. And in fact, to prove that it’s not the last word they’ve launched a $28 million ad campaign to tell us about the ideas boom.

In case you haven’t seen the ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhSt89wg2Bk

Hopefully, it doesn’t take too long to download. If only there were some way of speeding up the Internet, but I guess copper has its limitations. If we could just tranlate that idea “successful products or services to create new jobs and exports”.

So I’d suggest that Mr Morrison’s concentration on helping somebody win today is at odds with the whole Turnbull government strategy of encouraging people to think about how good it’s going to be in the future because we don’t have any ideas at the moment but we may well have some in the future… we’ll definitely have some in the future because innovation and our grandchildren and this isn’t the last word.

Although, Mr Morrison did talk about the future by suggesting that this was a test match and not a twenty over game before mixing his metaphor by changing to sailing and talking about battling headwinds. When talking about the fact that while they’d made $80 billion in savings, $70 billion had been spent again – which is a bit like saying that I’ve reduced my spending on alcohol but unfortunately while I saved on $80 on scotch, I’ve subsequently spent $70 extra on wine – he reminded us:

“There is no quick fix to it, there is no one statement, there is no one budget, there are budgets and budgets and budgets and budgets that are required to fix that problem.”

I’m presuming that by using the word “budgets” four times, he wasn’t suggesting that we just needed four budgets, but that it was code for “I don’t have a clue when this thing’ll be fixed, but certainly not while I’m Treasurer.”

Although, if I may steal his metaphor, he implied that the previous two batsmen, Abbott and Hockey had spent too long at the crease without scoring any runs, although any fair-minded person would suggest that they did their job as openers in taking the hostile attack and making it easier for the incoming batsmen, and that possibly the reason for the whole term’s inability to score is that they picked an entire team of aggressive fast bowlers – with the exception of Turnbull who gives us a bit of spin – and that when they bat they have a tendency to throw the bat at everything, usually missing but occasionally skying the ball so high that it’s only when the fielding team crash into each other that they fail to be caught.

I was about to go on and suggest that the umpires appointed by the Murdoch press had a tendency to give the previous batting side out every time there was an appeal, but,since we had a change of innings, LBW seems to have been taken from the rule book , but I’m concerned that I’d be heading into rough waters if I pushed it any further and tried for a knockout blow.

So I’ll just conclude by saying that I’m so glad that I live in a country where ideas mean so much that the progeny of first person who came up with the idea of impersonating Elvis gives the Treasurer a new slogan to copy.