Extract from The Guardian
Julia Banks is a grim reminder of the sinkhole the PM can’t outrun,
but even without her bombshell, his gambit was doomed to fail
Before we get to Scott Morrison in his courtyard and Julia Banks in the parliament, I want to walk us back to January 2013.
Prime ministers have a tradition of delivering a speech at the National Press Club just after Australia Day to open the new political year, and Julia Gillard in 2013 decided to go for a big hit: she announced the timing of the next federal election eight months in advance.
Given the (surprise!) element of election timing is one of the few remaining vestiges of prime ministerial power left in the era of small government, one of the enduring benefits of incumbency, Gillard’s announcement wasn’t a sign of strength.
She was attempting to reset a government convulsed with internal divisions, and hold the marshalling Rudd forces at bay.
The reset didn’t work for Gillard, and Tuesday’s gambit wouldn’t have
worked for Morrison either, even if Banks hadn’t, with an exquisite
sense of timing, stood up in the House of Representatives and torpedoed
it.Prime ministers have a tradition of delivering a speech at the National Press Club just after Australia Day to open the new political year, and Julia Gillard in 2013 decided to go for a big hit: she announced the timing of the next federal election eight months in advance.
Given the (surprise!) element of election timing is one of the few remaining vestiges of prime ministerial power left in the era of small government, one of the enduring benefits of incumbency, Gillard’s announcement wasn’t a sign of strength.
She was attempting to reset a government convulsed with internal divisions, and hold the marshalling Rudd forces at bay.
Let’s be clear. Morrison strode into his courtyard on Tuesday morning and telegraphed the eventual election timing (11 or 18 May) and the pathway to get there because his government is absolutely on the ropes.
The prime minister wanted to send a message to colleagues, and to any voter still watching, that they needed to hang on, because there was good news coming: the government would unveil a stronger budget position in the mid year economic forecast in December, and then a “surplus budget” next April.
It’s all going to come good guys, was the subtext. We just need to hang on, and not lose our collective minds.
Now, how can I say this politely? If you’ve got to hold a press conference to say that, to put it up on a big sparkly billboard pulsing Fabulous™, you are already down the gurgler, and everyone knows it.
Success doesn’t have to be forced, or stage-managed, it just happens, and people notice it. All by themselves.
While the official government view remains that we need to extend the runway to give ourselves the best chance of political recovery, some have reached the view that Morrison should get to an election as soon as possible, because the current position feels terminal, and more time spent marking time might make things worse, rather than better.
If voters begin to suspect the government is delaying the inevitable just to keep ministerial bums on seats for a few more months, it might increase the body count – goes the logic – given voters are profoundly sick of Cirque de Canberra.
The sounding of the prime ministerial trumpet in the courtyard was, at least in part, about shaking that creeping fatalism off, about trying to sketch an alternative reality where the closing chapter was, somehow, triumph and not demise.
Then along came Banks, with a short, sharp, articulate rationale for why she could no longer sit with her Liberal party colleagues – a grim reminder of the sinkhole that keeps opening up despite Morrison’s best efforts to outrun it.
Banks is an outsider to politics, and has struggled with the thuggish realities of the culture as it manifests in 2018, and with the prevailing boys’ club in conservative politics.
She did not mask her horror when conservatives moved against Malcolm Turnbull in August, and she has not masked her profound alienation since.
It was a shock, Tuesday’s defection, but it wasn’t a surprise.
Right at the moment, the government party room has taken on something of a funereal atmosphere, where MPs aren’t game to speak up honestly for fear of their contributions leaking, and creating more trouble – or because people have begun to retreat into themselves, which is a natural human response to an adversity on a scale beyond your control.
And looking ahead, surplus budget or no surplus budget, there is only adversity as far as the eye can see.
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