Three days ago, Australia’s treasurer, Scott Morrison, was denying there was a leadership challenge under way. Now he’s won the prime ministership, 45 votes to 40 in the Liberal party, after he merged as the consensus candidate best able to gather votes from across the ideological divide that has convulsed the conservative side of politics in Australia for months.
He will become Australia’s 30th prime minister.
In a more orderly contest, Morrison would have been relying on the conservatives wing as his core support. A Christian and regular attendee at the Horizon Pentecostal megachurch in Sydney’s south, he’s a social conservative who led the charge on Australia’s tough immigration policy.
But, having stood with former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull until his leadership was in tatters, Morrison emerged as the preferred candidate of the moderates, who have watched with horror as key rightwing MPs including leadership rival Peter Dutton and elements of the media sought to drag the party further to the right.
Morrison, the son of a policeman wears his political ambition and his conservative credentials proudly.
He voted no on same-sex marriage in parliament last year despite a national poll strongly supporting the change. He lists “church” as one of his interests in his Who’s Who entry and counts former prime minister John Howard as his political inspiration.
Before he entered parliament, Morrison was a wheeler and dealer in Liberal right politics in New South Wales and was always going to go places.
He was managing director of Tourism Australia and likes to joke he created Lara Bingle, the model now married to Australian actor Sam Worthington, by featuring her in Australia’s notorious ad campaign that featured the slogan “Where the bloody hell are you?” It was banned on UK television as too risque.
On arriving in Canberra in 2007, Morrison quickly made it clear he was ambitious and by 2009 was rewarded with the controversial portfolio of immigration and citizenship by then leader Tony Abbott.
Abbott described Morrison as a “great talent”, and he quickly became a battering ram in the Coalition’s strategy to win government. The message was simple: the Coalition would be much, much tougher than Labor on dealing with asylum seekers arriving by boat.
Under pressure, Labor reopened the offshore detention centres on Manus and Nauru as the 2013 election loomed. When Abbott became prime minister he doubled down on offshore detention. Morrison was unflinching in the plan to “stop the boats”. Operation Sovereign Borders included a policy of turning back boats that attempted to reach Australia. “If people seek to get here the wrong way, they won’t get here,” he said.
In June 2014, he took his message directly to the refugees on Manus and Nauru in a controversial video. “If you choose not to go home then you will spend a very, very long time here,” he said.
If the howls of criticism of Australia’s human rights record by human rights groups or the plight of detainees in offshore detention personally affected Morrison he didn’t let it show. He appeared to revel in the role of defender of Australia’s borders.
Despite Abbott’s sponsorship, Morrison played a pivotal role in delivering the prime minister ship to Turnbull in 2015 – and became the treasurer. The new role allowed him to cast off some of the controversy.
But in the treasurer’s role Morrison has been less assured. His reputation as a shrewd political operative was dented early by tax policy kite-flying exercises. Over time though, Morrison has warmed to the role.
Morrison’s 2018-19 budget announcing personal tax cuts, an improvement in the deficit and little in the way of painful spending cuts was greeted warmly, though some economists queried its optimistic forecasts. And the economy has been kind to Morrison. His mantra of “jobs and growth” has been backed up by the statistics: GDP growth has been running above forecasts at 3.1% and unemployment edged lower to 5.4% in July.
That left Morrison space to return to his favourite role: chief prosecutor of the “Kill Bill” strategy, which involves blaming Labor opposition leader Bill Shorten for everything.
Morrison’s first challenge as prime minister will be to heal the fissures in the Liberal party. Then he needs to define what he wants to do.
