In his post-PM, current backbench capacity, Scott Morrison has kept a low profile in Parliament, finding reason to stand up and address the chamber a sum total of three times.
Duty first called when Queen Elizabeth II died, and next during a post-mortem of his job(s) as prime minister. Now Morrison has rolled out the speechwriters and fired up the printer to declare his opposition to an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
Drawing on many previously debunked No case talking points, Morrison yesterday declared the architecture of a constitutionally enshrined Voice to be “ill-defined”, unnecessary, divisive, beyond the jurisdiction of sporting codes, risk-ridden for government and the executive, and business as usual for Indigenous people.
“Permanently changing the constitution in the way the government proposes will sadly not change the desperate circumstances being experienced in so many Indigenous communities across Australia,” he said, adding that the proposal was rooted in hope that “can be reasonably foreseen” to result in disappointment.
No rhetoric is nothing new from Morrison. While prime minister, he gave a resounding no to constitutionally carving out space for a Voice. He was, however, for the establishment of Voice mechanisms at a local and regional level.
Former Liberal frontbencher and opposition spokesman for Indigenous Australians Julian Leeser (now joining Morrison on the backbench because of his support for the Voice) took a very different tone during his speech, declaring the Voice nothing to do with privilege or division, and not a case of “Moses handing down tablets from the mountain”. Speaking to legal logistics, he likened it to the security service, chief medical officer and chief scientist who act as advisers to the Parliament and executive.
His address was praised on Twitter by Uluru Dialogue co-chair Professor Megan Davis.
As prime minister, Morrison was never one to shy away from the spotlight. To honour the now “quiet Australian”, Crikey has decided to profile the other two times the member for Cook saw fit to take the stand and speak in Parliament.
Death of Queen Elizabeth II
Following the queen’s passing in September, Morrison joined the long list of parliamentarians to pay tribute to the monarch. The former PM used the opportunity to quote Biblical scripture, citing a “deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ” as reason for the queen’s longevity.
Morrison pulled religious references from two of the queen’s Christmas messages (which he noted he’d “taken the time to go back over and read”), describing Jesus Christ as “an inspiration and an anchor” and God as a guide through “good times and bad”, but he landed on his own excerpt about the righteous leader being one “who rules in the fear of God” as the “best description of Her Majesty’s reign”.
Among other things, Morrison described the queen as a rock and a constant: “She was something that didn’t change in a world that changed every minute of every day.”
Censure motion
On this occasion, Morrison was less in a position to preach. He took the lectern in November last year as a matter of order and proceeded to try talk his way out of a censure motion moved against him for the multiple ministries he acquired as prime minister.
While conceding that “there are always lessons to be learned” and that some decisions “in hindsight, were unnecessary”, Morrison was clear that he would be offering no apology for the actions he took.
“I do not apologise for taking action, especially prudent redundancy action, in a national crisis in order to save lives and to save livelihoods,” he said.
The former PM reminded the chamber that criticisms of his decisions were being made from the “safety and relative calm of hindsight”. Far from a beautiful thing, Morrison said that hindsight was proving to be a limiting factor for “third parties to draw definitive conclusions on such matters and sit in judgement”.
He asked that all not so good decisions be weighed against good decisions as a matter of bipartisan policy and in the absence of balance accused the government of “intimidation”, retributive politics, “and nothing less”.
Morrison implored the Albanese government to remember that “grace in victory is a virtue”.
