Analysis
Updated
Australia's marketing expert Prime Minister has just had his first major product recall.
Scott Morrison's brand has been damaged, as he wings his way back to Australia from Hawaii, a trifle shop-soiled and humiliated.And all because Morrison and his office thought they could engineer silence on a family holiday.
As so often in politics, it's the cover-up that gets you.
No-one begrudges the fellow going on holiday with his wife and lovely girls who have probably seen less of their dad this year than any in their short lives.
And he's undoubtedly knackered from a hectic year in which he pulled off a miracle election win.
But it's highly inadvisable to fudge on your whereabouts or when you're going to return within radar.
This is not about preserving the PM's privacy, the privacy of his young family or questions of their security.
Where he goes for a family holiday isn't particularly important but confirming he's clocked off, when he's coming back on duty and who's taken his place is important.
When it was briefed out on Monday that the PM was on holidays, it was explained he'd be on a "couple of quick days of leave".
But as the PM revealed to 2GB on Friday morning, he texted Labor leader Anthony Albanese that day to inform him he'd be on a week's holiday.
There was no official public note issued of his absence and when one Press Gallery journalist inquired with the Deputy Prime Minister's office as to whether Michael McCormack was Acting PM, the journalist was referred back to the PM's Office.
And when a couple of journos asked the PMO to confirm the boss was in Hawaii, they were told this was incorrect.
Here's a tip for the PM's minders: don't compound a fudge with a fib.
'I'll happily come back': Morrison breaks silence, announces return
Of course, any Morrison family holiday was going to attract his critics, because the haters are going to hate, just as a holiday taken by Julia Gillard or Kevin Rudd at a time of community difficulty would have been the subject of haranguing commentary by those in the conservative media.But what started as a social media storm, whipped up by the predictable hashtag army, morphed into a question of leadership and judgment when the calamity of the bushfires mounted.
If Gladys Berejiklian's declaration of a State of Emergency in NSW hadn't already made Morrison sweat a little more in his Hawaiian shirt, the tragedy at Buxton made the continuation of his holiday untenable.
The death of two volunteer firies, who themselves have young families, only served to further embarrass Morrison, despite the fact that the PM is as helpless as most of us are in the face of these terrible blazes.
"I don't hold a hose, mate, and I don't sit in a control room," Morrison told 2GB radio host John Stanley from Hawaii.
"That's the brave people who … are doing that job. But I know that Australians would want me back at this time … of these fatalities.
"So I'll happily come back and do that."
Morrison is actually lucky more pressure hasn't been applied
Morrison can be grateful that Anthony Albanese has been very measured this week.Imagine if it had been Rudd or Gillard who'd gone on holiday in similar circumstances? The contrast with their opponent, volunteer firefighter Tony Abbott, would have been devastating.
Abbott would have been seen daily, doing as he's done for years, fighting the flames in fluoro, ash stained on his face.
Doing the supermarket run (Marrickville) and look who was just in front of me buying water, muesli bars and Up and Go packs for Blue Mountains RFS volunteers who he is visiting tomorrow. @AlboMP #wherethebloodyhellareya @ScottMorrisonMP #auspol #NSWfires
Albanese has visited members of the Rural Fire Service, making breakfast for volunteers, but has constrained his commentary.
Morrison will return to Sydney on Saturday, his office says, two days before the scheduled end of his holiday.
His job will not be to hold a hose, but to empathise, to thank emergency staff and to offer any practical help required.
Step one: Apologise. Step two: Move on climate policy
But a restoration of his public image, complete with an on-camera expression of his "deep regret" for not being in Australia at a time of tragedy, will not be his only challenge.
It is now very clear that the Coalition must recalibrate its climate and energy policies.
Amid the smoke haze, the community horror and angst, this is a point of real clarity.
Morrison's attempt last week to reassure Sydneysiders concerned by the incessant bushfire haze, by asserting he'd seen it all before, didn't cut it. Nor does it now.
The Morrison Government has reached a point in the cycle of climate policy very similar to the point reached by John Howard in 2006-7 during the millennium drought.
Howard found himself on the wrong side of the public mood on climate change. And he did something that still seems remarkable; he announced support for an emissions trading scheme.
Similarly, Morrison and the Coalition have been left stranded by a rapidly shifting public sentiment. The tide's gone out.
And even worse, the PM's Hawaiian holiday may have punctured itself into the conscience of the very people who he claims landed him political salvation on May 18, the so-called Quiet Australians.
Indeed, it might be the only political barney they've taken any notice of since the election. And it's not flattering.
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