Extract from The Guardian
Scott Morrison has spent the past week hot on the trail of two wars – one lethal, the other cultural – as he tries to sniff out a path to election victory.
That moment popped into my head this week as I watched Morrison out on the hustings in Tasmania. The more recent circumstances were quite different, but the vibe was similar.
Morrison was flanked by Bridget Archer, the moderate Liberal, who has made a name for herself in Canberra by (wait for it) saying what she thinks and doing what she believes is right. A journalist asked the prime minister whether he continued to support her. If this seems like a strange question, let’s contextualise quickly.
Archer was one of five MPs who torpedoed Morrison’s signature religious discrimination bill in part because the package failed to protect transgender children in religious schools. Before that, Archer also worked with the independent Helen Haines to bring on an unscheduled debate about a federal integrity commission – the anti-corruption body Morrison promised voters but failed to deliver.
She’s capital-T trouble, in other words.
But Morrison was having none of this naysaying. “You know, we love Bridge,” he enthused. “We really do. And I’m really pleased she’s on my team, and she’s on my team and she’s a fiery member of my team and she’s a fiery member for Bass.”
But before anyone could grab a fire extinguisher, or order an “I heart Bridge” campaign T-shirt, there was a plot twist.
Still in Tasmania, Morrison went on to endorse a private senator’s bill being spearheaded by Claire Chandler. Chandler, a conservative, is Archer’s Tasmanian colleague. Chandler’s bill would allow sporting groups to exclude transgender people from single-sex sports. Sporting codes seem either bemused or openly hostile towards this proposal. Chandler says she pursued it to save women’s sport, and because Tasmanian parents want it.
If we track back to Archer and the religious discrimination proposal, she crossed the floor in an effort to protect and support trans kids because she knows they are a vulnerable cohort.
She didn’t do it to be liked, or to be thanked. Archer did it because if you believe God is love, you really can’t stomach doing anything else. She told parliament she feared doing anything other than what she did would “risk lives”.
In the days following her decision, there’s been gratitude. But there’s also been hostility. So Morrison’s effusive on-ground endorsement of the Chandler proposal looked pretty pointed. Almost like a prime minister’s love of “Bridge” might be a teensy bit conditional.
Morrison at the moment is like a truffle-hunting dog, sniffing out his path to election victory. He has spent this past week hot on the trail of two wars: one lethal, the other cultural.
Obviously, the lethal conflict is the horror playing out in Ukraine. We’ll get to that war, and its local political implications, shortly. But first, let’s consider Morrison’s experimental culture war: a war on wokeness improvised during a campaign stop in Tasmania.
Ever since his religious discrimination legislation hit the fence, Morrison has been throwing red meat to the right of his party. The prime minister has to do this, because safeguarding religious freedom was what conservatives (including the prime minister himself) wanted in return for the legalisation of same-sex marriage. Morrison failed to deliver. As losses go, this was a bad one.
Morrison rolled out of the setback by launching a sonic boom on China. He would be more Dutton than Peter Dutton, which, let’s be honest, takes some doing. Then, more protein for conservatives the following week. This full-throated endorsement of the Chandler bill. It was a “terrific” proposal. “Claire is a champion for women’s sport and I think she’s been right to raise these issues in the way that she has,” Morrison said. “Well done, Claire.”
Morrison is singularly focused shoring up his own position – and apparently reckless enough to lurch from reds under the bed to casual transphobia to land that objective. But his project is bigger than holding out any last-minute regicidal brain explosion by raging rightwingers during budget week.
Morrison is very plainly on the hunt for disaffected but highly motivated voters.
Perhaps it’s simplest to think of Morrison’s tactics this way. If the 2019 election was about him whispering sweet nothings in the ears of “quiet Australians”, the 2022 contest is about the prime minister picking up a loud hailer so he can be heard by the noisy folks. He’s courting a noisy, minority of voters alienated from the major parties, from government as a construct, and in some cases, from rapidly shifting societal and cultural norms.
People in politics report there is a cohort of Australians right now who are riled, and emotional. Call that the legacy of the pandemic. While Australian society has moved a measurable distance in favour of inclusion and tolerance, MPs say constituents uncomfortable with the idea of people transitioning are energised and motivated by their discomfort.
We see similar raised hackles in the public protests against vaccination mandates – this existential sense that powerful forces have shifted a known centre of gravity in an unfavourable direction. Morrison thinks he needs to engage that cohort of voters because he can’t trust that preferences from disaffected rightwingers will flow back to the Coalition on election night.
Now we need to think about Ukraine.
Australians have been watching the dead-eyed Vladimir Putin creeping towards lethal aggression for some weeks now. Russia’s escalation on Thursday wasn’t a shock, but it is one thing to understand intellectually that something bad can happen and another thing to watch an invasion of another country happen on live television.
It would be an understatement to say the times are deeply disconcerting.
The events of this past week lay the foundations of Morrison’s khaki election. The prime minister very obviously believes the Coalition can prosper politically in this uncertainty. But to do that, Morrison has to bring that sense of threat, or dread, back home.
If you watch what the prime minister is saying, you’ll already have worked out how he’s doing that. The bridge between Ukraine and Australia is China.
His political messaging is happening at two levels. The big picture Morrison is painting is if Putin can do this – ignore the sovereignty of a peaceful neighbour and grab what he wants – so can the regime in Beijing. This could happen in our neighbourhood is the point.
Morrison is speaking about China almost as much as he’s speaking about Ukraine at the moment. Why won’t China condemn Putin? Why is China at odds with the west? Why is China easing trade with Russia? What is China hiding?
All very reasonable questions, of course.
But this post-invasion posture from Morrison is also part two of the China frenzy from the week before – the wild talk of Manchurian candidates, and Anthony Albanese being Xi’s candidate to win in May.
Morrison’s political objectives are blindingly obvious.
What is less clear is whether his current tin hat foray can cancel out the accumulated domestic disaffection of the past 12 months. Is come to daddy an automatic vote winner for the Coalition in 2022?
Our latest Guardian Essential poll suggests voters are inclined to see complexity where Morrison is intent on packaging aggressive simplicity. Morrison spent last week telling voters China was bad, and bad China wants Labor to win. Voters responded by telling the pollsters at Essential that Australia’s relationship with China was complex. Disapproval of the prime minister also ticked up, suggesting voters are now sceptical about Morrison and his relentless shtick.
But that survey was taken before Russia stormed over the Ukrainian border.
When it comes to fighting Australian elections in the shadow of war, or substantial geopolitical realignments, or security threats, I can tell you what recent history shows us.
But I can’t yet tell you how this story ends.
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