When Scott Morrison met Nemesis
There are few surprises regarding the final episode of Nemesis, the three-part account on how the Australian Liberal Party, in partnership with the dozy Nationals, psychotically and convulsively disembowelled themselves from the time Tony Abbott won office in 2013. Over the muddy gore and violence concluding the tenures of Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, one plotter rose, knife bloodied and brimming with confidence: Scott Morrison. As always, he claims to have done so without a trace. That, dear readers, is the way of all advertising men.
The inconspicuous rise of Morrison heralded a bankrupt political culture, one of smeary gloss, smug grabs on complex issues, the insufferable slogan, the intelligence shaving brochure, the simplifying statement about worlds complex and abstract. No political environment can, nor should ever eschew the simple message, but Morrisons’s minute, unimaginative cosmos – that of the advertising man with his swill bucket sloshing away – had little to merit it.
With such a stunted Weltanschauung, Morrison’s misdeeds proved vast in spread and stench, the result of what former cabinet minister and creep-in-chief Christopher Pyne understatedly called a “lack of humility”. The makers of Nemesis could only dip their feet in the waters of his blighted stewardship. It would have taken several immersions alone to cover the despoiling of public life marked by stacking the Fair Work Commission and Administrative Appeals Tribunal with appointments friendly to the Coalition or the so-called “rorts” affairs, of which there were many cloacal instances of corruption.
While the library of Australian politics is shelf-heavy with misused funds to advance the fortunes of the party in government, the Morrison government proved exemplary. In the lead-up to the 2019 election, Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie’s office was the happy recipient of $100 million worth of community sport infrastructure grants. Their destination was exclusively towards marginal seats, best typified by the mock presentation by Georgina Downer to the South Australian Yankalilla bowling club of a $127,373 grant. The novelty cheque from the Liberal candidate for Mayo was scorned by sitting member and independent Rebekha Sharkie at the time as unrivalled in its crassness and desperation.
Much the same story was repeated in the so-called “car parks rorts” affair, which saw hundreds of millions of dollars directed towards 47 car parks, largely located in the top 20 marginal seats selected by staffers working for the then infrastructure minister, Alan Tudge. The decision making by the staffers left the Department of Infrastructure a mere spectator to policy.
By 2022, Morrison’s crooked form on the issue of grants was complete and immortal. The Australian National Audit Office, when examining the Building Better Regions Fund (BBRF), found that “65 per cent of IP [infrastructure project] stream applications approved for funding were not those assessed as being the most meritorious in the assessment process.”
Other matters covered in the series finale continue to look baffling and uncomfortable. Authoritarian paranoia made its ugly appearance in Morrison’s decision to appoint himself, unbeknownst to his fellow ministers, to the departments of health, finance, treasury, home affairs and resources during the COVID-19 crisis. Despite the ravages of the pandemic and the risks of debility to his cabinet, there was no reason for doing so.
Excruciating clumsiness stood out with his handling of sexual assault allegations made by Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins (“Jenny [Morrison’s wife] and I spoke last night and she said to me, you have to think about this as a father”) while his abominable treatment of Christine Holgate, which resulted in the removal of Australia Post’s most successful CEO for approving Cartier watches for select staff, suggested what came to known as the government’s “woman problem”. The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, could only draw the obvious conclusion: “[W]omen had lost faith in us because we didn’t handle those situations well. That was the real beginning, where Australians stopped listening, but particularly women stopped listening.”
Gross indifference over his clandestine family trip to Hawaii as Australia scorched and smouldered before furious bush fires, one which he hoped the then-Nationals leader Michael McCormack could keep mum about, suggested Morrison’s lack of maturity. “It looked as if there had been lies told to the [press] gallery,” Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg admitted. Liberal MP Russell Broadbent preferred to be “gobsmacked” about the whole affair.
On the issue of the AUKUS security pact between the US, UK and Australia, Morrison nails his colours firmly to the mast as a dangerously deluded pioneer. It was he, and only he, that suggested the submarine agreement with France’s Naval Group for twelve diesel-powered attack submarines be scratched in favour of a nuclear-propulsion option.
Given the incurably mendacious nature of the man, claims to having a monopoly on AUKUS must be regarded with caution. For one thing, it has since come to light that the Australian businessman Anthony Pratt already had former US President Donald Trump’s ear on the subject of nuclear-powered submarines when they met at the Mar-a-Lago club in April 2021. Pratt then allegedly shared the details of the discussion with three former Australian prime ministers, 10 Australian officials, 11 of Pratt’s employees and six journalists. The announcement of AUKUS only took place on September 15, 2021, suggesting a filtering of ideas through the Australian-US security apparatus. Trump may have left office by then, but the lingering interests of the US military industrial complex had not.
Morrison’s unspeakable treatment of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, proved diabolically amateurish and spiteful. To have dinner with the head of state of another country even as plans to terminate an agreement worth A$90 billion is underfoot, suggests some form of arrested mental development. “You don’t cancel a $90 billion contract and the other party is happy,” he merely shrugged. In any case, he did not want to see Macron deploy “the entire French diplomatic corps and [kill] the deal.” This was, in his mind, “the best” of decisions, “one that others had never sought to successfully undertake.”
If the best decision of an administration involves the renting of a country’s autonomy, the surrendering of land and facilities to be used by a nuclear-armed, clumsy goliath, the conversion of an entire state to the status of a garrisoned, forward defence base to police rivals, including a power with whom you have no historical animosity with, one is coming very close to confusing patriotic innovation and self-interest with treason.
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22 comments
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Phil Pryor -
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andyfiftysix -
Old bloke -
andyfiftysix -
andyfiftysix -
Win Jeavons -
Old bloke -
leefe -
andyfiftysix -
paul walter -
Clakka -
paul walter -
corvusboreus -
Canguro -
corvusboreus -
corvusboreus -
Clakka -
andyfiftysix -
corvusboreus -
Clakka -
Frank Sterle Jr.
Return to home pageOur most idiotic, debased, backward, Un-Australian deviate political leader has gone, Mad Morrison the self mesmerised moronic merdepile. How this lump got in up and on, “thanks” to conservative people, machinations, scheming, plotting and selfish support fantasies remains a sickness to be analysed, hopefully treated, avoided. But the stink of faecal frolics remains, e g., B Joyce the bulging bladder of beastliness. Hewson was too good for that lot, a man of intelligence and some principle. The dive down with Jack Howard has set a filthy example of self-fixated, wilful stupidity that has doomed us, and the Abbott to Morrison line proves how substandard orthodox establishment in Australia became, with serious declines in all standards in media, finance, corporate behaviour, social attitude, so called “common sense.” Our future may prove to be or become a sick past, soon.
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I would venture that the AUKUS deal was a brilliant idea.
it kills so many birds with one stone.
1/ the liberals needed to show strength in security matters, had to be ” on water matters” till the final announcement.
2/ It had to appeal to liberals and their fascination with all things nuclear, get it in the back door.
3/ In trump, i guess they want him to win, they see somebody who will oblige
4/ It overcomes years of inertia and counter arguments about subs…..we are getting the best……no matter the cost
5/ wedge labor as being weak on security and nuclear power
However, as is usual with liberal brain snaps its all falling to shit. We will never get any subs from the USA.
By the time our number comes up, subs will be relegated to history.
Its a brilliant plan because it has in one master stroke killed off the whole notion……….
Kinda like Snowy mk2, in a bubble it looks brilliant. Take it outside and it is a second rate brain fart.
now compare that to labor and fibre to the home on a white board. That WAS a brilliant strategy that the libs fucked up real bad.
The libs are not smart guys and why have they captured 30% of the population with that track record?
‘confusing patriotic innovation and self-interest with treason’. Treason it is. And sadly Richard Marles of the Labor government is similarly treasonous in outsourcing our security to a bunch of American ratbags.
while we are dissecting Morrison and his stupidity, we also need to go over another shit head, Turnbull.
Wasnt he the same shit head that said 20mb/s was all you would ever need for the internet? Just to justify his gutting of labor’s brilliant plan to go fibre all the way. It was supposed to be cheaper , no? How come its now being rebuilt with fibre?
Wasnt he the same guy who started Snowy mk2. Was there a report about abundant storage available in australia? Batteries were starting to get better and then the report said we can have water storage. Was that report the same as “gas led recovery” report? Was it pre determined that the water storage report would justify snowy mk2? Its like, pick the worst idea imaginable , do a ” bubble” model and lets run with it.
I am starting to smell a dead rat.
old bloke, now now now, you are not playing the long game here. Nuclear subs will not be delivered here.
Its so far into the future, it makes no sense crying about what will happen in 20yrs time
Just look at how advanced Ukraine is with drones and surely , all navies are shitting themselves.
marles will not be in politics when the final blow is delivered. But he has to put in a plausible effort or the libs will start to cry again.
You can be pedantic about it all but all you do is work yourself up..its a long game thats being played.
To andyfiftysix: we have repeatedly lost NBN in our area because someone (s?) keeps digging and stealing the copper cable to sell. l also agree on AUKUS – l simply don’t believe it will ever happen.
andyfiftysix, as much I enjoyed your repost….I wasn’t talking about the subs, but a broader view of our security. It’s not just the subs, its our foreign policy too and making enemies of friends and major trading partners for the off chance that the US might defend us if we were attacked. Do you think the US would be prepared to lose San Francisco to save Sydney or Pine Gap for that matter?
” … Australians stopped listening, but particularly women stopped listening.”
Or maybe they stopped believing, stopped trusting, stopped tolerating the bullshit?
hey Old bloke, its a multi faceted dilemma labor faces. I think they are handling it as well as can be expected.
Its never going to be all out honest and brutal. Thankfully we will never get to find out……who the F will want to invade us, we have too many tickets on our value.
Wise Old bloke…
As a preamble, I just clarify, I am not a militarist and detest militarism.
AUKUS is not a simple thing to easily unpick. It’s certainly about ‘defense’ and ‘strategics’, not fundamentally about ballistics warfare, but more about surveillance (and protection) of commerce and information (internet / satellite / security / defense / energy & resource & transport protection). It just so happens it is more readily facilitated by the security provisions extant under the respective ‘Defense Portfolios’.
One ought pay heed to the AUKUS ‘pillar 2’ matters – they are extremely relevant to those notions in light of the real information vulnerabilities of ‘hacking’ and the like in this increasingly digitally controlled world. Think, for example, the current brouhaha between India and China regarding China’s close quarters undersea mapping off India’s southern coast (and also around the islands of the central western pacific).
To compare the ‘AUKUS’ subs with aerial drones, or to suppose them dashing off to the Taiwan region to fight conventional naval wars with China, is utter nonsense. But be assured, we will have those subs. They won’t have missile tubes, but just what they do have, and how they are configured and integrated, and the m.o. multiplicity will remain very closely guarded.
It’s all very well being snarky about hegemonies, and imperiums with a colonial / post-colonial mindset, but the fact is they remain as economic / tech blocs, albeit largely along cultural / multi-cultural lines. And they are now extremely sophisticated and high-tech, and the foundations are laid / being laid so their operations can be executed with light speed. Being complacent or a laggard in that sense is to be exceedingly foolish.
Fair comments from Clakka…they are not going to leave us alone.
Where the disciplines of archaeology and history are combined with the study of past ecosystems and environments, there is often distinct correlation between occurrences of environmental instability and escalations in human upheaval/conflict.
It is also not a secret that pentagon/DoD briefings to the US government list increased food insecurity and mass human displacement as near-future conflict-driving consequences of accelerative climate change.
And speaking of human upheaval… if this compilation of recent utterances of the American president is any indication of the best that a country of 340 million can elect as leader then it’s a tragic metaphor for that nation of the disunited. As a commentator noted, “maybe on a human level this is sad, it is the decay of a living mind, otoh, let’s not forget this is NOT a sweet old man. Like most of his predecessors he’s a war criminal, politically and arguably morally corrupt. Maybe he’s an accurate reflection of the Republic.”
If Australia had a prime minister showing similar symptoms of cognitive decline and well along the road towards dementia it’s a sure bet they’d be replaced, real quick.
Canguro,
2024 : the evil of two lessers.
Mummified stick-figure marionette (81)
Vs
Gangrenous saggy-baggy scrotesack (77)
One entrenched in political grift,
the other specialised in corporate fraud.
One blatantly falling into senility,
the other patently deranged and insane.
Get psyched to vote, Murica!
Canguro,
Having said that, if I were a murican, I would choose the Boden box as an effective “not-Trump” vote.
“But why, Corvus? how could you? Biden is ideologically impure!”
(shrieks the imaginary Greek-chorus)).
Because the other one seeks to demolish existing constraints against the absolute wielding of executive power, as well as seeking legal precedent for the person of the US president to be completely exempt and immune from all potential criminal prosecution for any illegal acts commited whilst in power.
Ideologically and ethically, I’m kinda sorta obliged to actively oppose that.
Both sides of the American duopoly beguiled by innumerable international martial adventures of theft and money-making, in their usual bungling manner wasted trillions. With treasonous lies of the duties of the world’s policemen, they milked dry their low / middle income earners, entrenched largesse into the military machine and peddled xenophobia and simplistic ideological angst across the nation, and converted international diplomacy to mandates via bombs and drugs and guns.
Whilst now the democrats are too late trying to change it, the GOP, now fully criminalized are trying to smash it and implant an authoritarian kleptocracy. Trump is their man.
Their exceptionalist nationalist stupidity has fucked over the world psyche and more so their own. The whole world is now held to ransom, and the swinging voting whims of American low / middle income earners, and down and outers who understandably want revenge on their system that brought them to such poverty and psychological desperation, and they see Trump as their man of vengeance.
Seems it may only be women and the LTBQI+ that can keep him out and give us a chance against calamity. And even then much seems it will be riding on Joe’s VP.
Clakka et al, you seem to think things can be changed that easily. If you have voted in narcissists all your life, you aint gonna change in a hurry. Its like natural selection. same as here in Australia, keep voting for stupid and soon stupid is the normal.
You cant equate trump with biden. Biden sure , he represents some pretty dodgy american ideals but ha, not a patch on the psycho trump. Me, i dont think a psycho is going to make anything better. Biden with all his flaws is looking a darn sight more intelligent every day.
Andyfiftysix,
To be honest, the bulk of the AIMN readership are probably now so thoroughly desensitised and Overton-shifted by Binoy’s steady drip of pro-Putin neo-tankie gaslighting that the prospect of a US president with absolute autocratic power and complete immunity from legal repercussion seems perfectly AOK.
After all, working fine for Russia
A56,
Aaaah, you’ve done it again.
As is often the case, your comments / critique of other’s comments include irrelevant non-sequiturs. You have failed to address the substance of my comments opting to make sweeping and incorrect assumptions for which you have no evidence. You don’t even have the good manners to ask my view of your ‘opinion’ before casting your unfounded aspersions. It is not good enough to say ” …. you seem to think … “, and in this case, as before, regarding my view, you are wrong.
It’s OK that you grind your axe, and at times, points you make may to me have merit. When responding to an article, I choose whether to respond to its entirety (as I see it), or part only, and whether to respond specifically or generally or via an aside. I see it as an interesting exchange of knowledge and ideas, whether in agreement, disagreement or variation inside or outside ‘the box’, but not as a competition.
I am not going to respond to the substance of your opinion until you lift your game. But be assured, every time you refer to me / my comments in the unthinking and cavalier manner you have again demonstrated, I shall take you to task.
Unlike today’s children, I don’t have to face so many bleak decades of extreme weather and its consequences. I still find hope for humankind, though mostly in environmentally conscious and active young people, especially those approaching or reaching voting age.
In contrast, the dinosaur electorate who have been voting into high office consecutive mass-pollution promoting or complicit/complacent governments for decades are gradually dying off thus making way for voters who fully support a healthy Earth thus populace.
Relatively trivial politics diverts attention away from some of the planet’s greatest polluters, where it should and needs to be sharply focused. And mass addiction to fossil fuel products by the larger public undoubtedly helps keep the average consumer quiet about the planet’s greatest polluter, lest they feel and/or be publicly deemed hypocritical.
Meantime, if the universal availability of green-energy alternatives will come at the profit-margin expense of traditional ‘energy’ production companies, one can expect formidable obstacles, including the political and regulatory sort. If it conflicts with big-profit interests, even very progressive motions are greatly resisted, often enough successfully.