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There’s something Trumpian about his strategy: deny reality and then harness all your mastery of bluster to create a new one

In his spirited yet ultimately futile attempt to avoid being beached at Wentworth, Captain Scott Morrison has flagged the way he will attempt to cling to power in the general election.
At the core of Morrison’s survival strategy is a simple plan to keep the ship of state moving at break-neck speed and hope like hell that if you throw up enough new ideas one of them will land to your advantage.
The first part of the Morrison mission is to convince Australians his is a new government, not the one(s) that had been roundly rejected under the leadership of first Tony Abbott and then Malcolm Turnbull.
If, the logic goes, he can convince people that the change of government has already occurred, then his argument for stability in a time of improving economic conditions sort of makes sense. After all, do we really need yet another new PM?
Admittedly, this was a difficult proposition to land at Bondi Beach, when he was contesting the seat of the former leader. The best he could come up with there was, “nothing to see here folks, I’m the captain now”.
Sadly for Morrison, this week’s Essential Report shows that it’s not just the people of Wentworth who aren’t buying the “new government” line.
Still, by making a lot of news and promoting ideas that are the antithesis of Turnbull’s moderate conservatism, there is the chance to reinvent the government into something different – and a whole lot whackier.
That’s where the second part of Morrison’s strategy kicks in: to keep the debate moving in a bid to find a place to shift the conversation.
It seems like we have been in a pitch meeting, the marketing guy spit-balling ideas and seeing which post-it notes stick to the whiteboard. There’s something deeply Trumpian about the whole thing: deny reality and then harness all your mastery of bluster to create a new one.
Still, all Morrison has to do is land one thought bubble and there is the chance to confect an issue that unifies the conservative base, while splitting the progressive forces. This week’s Essential Report shows where such opportunities may lie.
While there is scant support for the so-called religious freedom laws and general opposition to fiddling around with the Middle East peace process, there are some issues that could fly with the public.
Forcing immigrants to move from the city to regions is one that would energise Coalition voters and rightwing independents, while splitting the Labor base. If the Coalition goes down this path, it will be difficult for the opposition not to follow in some form.
But even more potent may be a push to elevate the achievements of Captain James Cook, whose so-called “discovery” of Australia will be 250 years old in 2020.
Already there are plans to mark the occasion with a monument while the Endeavour has recently been found at the bottom of the ocean off the US east coast.
Elevating Cook’s “discovery” and throwing bug taxpayer dollars at the event would likely bring on a fight with progressives who are already questioning the choice of 26 January as a day of national celebration.
For Morrison it would be natural turf. The member for Cook is a Captain Cook sort of guy who would see big advantages in setting up a culture war on the virtues of the explorer. Only last week in a speech in Sydney, Morrison was lauding Captain Cook as a man of “science”. Make no mistake, the battle lines on a culture war are being drawn.
The irony of the science line would not be lost on those of us waiting to see the government take meaningful action on climate change – something that now seems deeper in the “too-hard-basket” than ever before.
And that’s where the Coalition’s cunning plan will inevitably hit the rocks.
For all his sound bites and stunts and too smart by half attacks on the opposition leader, the prime minister leads the same party that for the past six years has been incapable of leading on the one issue that the majority Australians is demanding action on.
As he flirts with building new coal-fired power stations at the behest of his far north rump, the gap between expectation and execution will only broaden.
Until the public comes to the conclusion there’s nothing new here. At best, a continuity with (no action on climate) change.

• Peter Lewis is the executive director of Essential and a Guardian Australia columnist