Scott Morrison has always wanted to be prime minister. Not because he thought he could do the job with any degree of integrity or ability, but because he considered the job a title rather than a responsibility - and a stepping stone to prestige, power and control. As a classic narcissist - he has a preoccupation with achieving his own success, a grandiosity of self-importance, sense of entitlement and lack of compassion for others. This is precisely why he is so limited in his ability to be a good prime minister.
Morrison has removed himself from the concept of the prime-ministerial responsibilities that rest on his shoulders and uses the power of his position to manipulate the very fabric of governing itself. He is an opportunist and accomplished manipulator who has been perfecting his skills for a long time.
Looking into Morrison's past before work and politics I find that it is deliberately unremarkable. There are the essential need-to-know details on sites like Wikipedia - he was born in Waverley, Sydney, he went to church, his father was a policeman and a one-term mayor of Waverley and he has the obligatory convict in his family tree who was transported here on the First Fleet in 1788. Morrison also attended Sydney Boys School and later the University of New South Wales. Ordinary, for the most part. Although there were not one, but two interesting uprisings from the Alumni of his former high school after he was elevated to government - the first in 2015 when Morrison was minister for immigration and there were objections to his appearance at a school fundraising event because he was "flagrantly disregarding human rights" - and the second in 2019 when he was elected as prime minister. In this instance he was strongly criticised by the alumni for being a climate-change denialist, a bigot, a Christian hypocrite, 'his record on LGBTQ rights and a hardening of Australia's offshore detention policy'. Perhaps the rumours that Morrison wasn't well liked by some of his peers at his former high school are true after all.
Morrison is evasive about himself and anything pertaining to his business dealings but it wasn't something he learned in government. The opaque screen that surrounds him is deliberate. He reveals little about himself, he avoids questions, he disrupts and redirects when uncomfortable - and self-preservation is as natural to him as breathing. He is a selfish man. He comes first and his 'mates' a close second as long as he benefits from the interaction in some way. It's all about him and the prize he's had his eye on for a long time. The machinations that have led him into the top gig are vast and murky, but I have no doubt that the intention and the contacts he has carefully cultivated in high places were manoeuvred constantly to get him there.
Morrison doesn't have a degree in marketing. He has a Bachelor of Science in Applied Economic Geography and calls himself a 'self-styled marketer'. After he graduated, he landed a job at the Property Council of Australia as a national policy and research manager where he spent approximately six years information gathering - learning how to lobby, spin and ways to network effectively to develop contacts to help further his career. Nearly every job Morrison had up until being elected to Cook in 2007 has a question mark hanging over it, with details hidden from public view and with more than one sudden departure before the term of his contract was over. He has used nearly every position he has had as a platform to elevate his contacts in the Liberal party. His positions were secondary to the more important task of upselling himself into the Liberal chain.
During his time at the Tourism Council of Australia Morrison developed a relationship with Bruce Baird, who would, coincidentally, become member for Cook in 1998. A 'start-up loan of $2.3 million' was provided by the Howard government at the time. Twelve months after Morrison left the TCA in 1998 the company was insolvent. It was noted by a former staffer that Bruce Baird and Morrison had contributed to much of the damage done. Morrison would continue on unabated to develop more networks in the Liberal party via the tourism industry.
Morrison got out of Dodge in 1998 and became the Director of the Office of Tourism and Sport in New Zealand, where he was involved in questionable payouts to two heads of the NZ Tourism Board. He left the Office of Tourism and Sport one year before his contract expired. 'The reasons for his departure have never been fully explained'. Even then Morrison had a political agenda. He had sided with the NZ tourism minister, Murray McCully, in a power struggle against the NZ Tourism Board.
When Morrison returned to Australia he briefly worked for KPMG Consulting, but you won't find that on his Wikipedia profile - it has mysteriously disappeared and is not listed in his parliamentary biography. You will find mention of his work at KPMG, however, in an announcement of Morrison's appointment as the managing director of Tourism Australia.
After his unmentionable stint at KPMG, Morrison eventually turned up as the NSW director of the Liberal Party in 2000. It has been said that Morrison may have had links to Tony Clark, who was managing director of KPMG until 1998. Clarke was also the Deputy Chairman of Tourism Australia and friend of John Howard. Morrison worked hard developing relationships with Liberal power brokers during this time and in 2004 caught the attention of John Howard. A short time later in 2004, the role of Managing Director of Tourism Australia practically fell into Morrison's lap - with the help of Joe Hockey, who was tourism minister at the time - who offered Morrison the $350k per-year opportunity.
Morrison received a glowing report on his appointment as MD of Tourism Australia, for 'establishing the Office of Tourism and Sport in New Zealand' which apparently 'substantially reformed tourism, marketing, research and forecasting'. The fact that Morrison had left The Office of Tourism and Sport in New Zealand under a cloud of scrutiny and a critical New Zealand audit report of his 'deceptive behaviour' was completely overlooked and, in fact, rewarded by the promotion as MD of Tourism Australia - which he would soon exploit for his own benefit.
As MD of Tourism Australia, Morrison was described as the invisible man - staff rarely saw him. What he was actually doing in his position as MD remains debatable. While he was at TA, he engaged Ian McFarlane as Director of Marketing Services who Morrison had worked with before in New Zealand at the Office of Tourism and Sport and had engaged M&C Saatchi to work on the '100% Pure New Zealand' campaign. Once McFarlane was installed, they quickly re-engaged M&C Saatchi to work on the controversial 'Where the Bloody Hell are You' campaign in Australia. After complaints about the tender process being 'skewed towards a particular agency', Morrison's old employer, KPMG Consulting were called in to conduct an internal audit process. The probity report that 'was supposedly conducted by KPMG, a report that Scott Morrison used to repeatedly shield himself from attacks over the awarding of the $180 million contracts, could not be found anywhere'. 'Nothing could be found to verify that there was an audit into the M&C Saatchi contract'. It is unclear what had happened to the documentation that was associated with the $180 million contract. It had simply disappeared. Or it did not exist at all - which would possibly make Scott Morrison a liar. KPMG can't even confirm that the report had ever been completed.
A penchant for covert dealings would continue to be Morrison's hallmark at Tourism Australia. It was revealed that there had been a failure to follow procurement guidelines on more than one contract and 'private companies were engaged on contracts worth $184 million before paperwork was signed and without appropriate value-for-money assessments'. Three major contracts were investigated by the Australian National Audit Office that had been signed by 'Tourism Australia while Scott Morrison was Managing Director'. Two of those contracts have never been listed on the government's AusTender website. Morrison was subsequently sacked from Tourism Australia before his contract had expired. It is not clear why he was terminated, although again there was a distinct lack of transparency and a conflict of interest involved in procedure.
In 2007 Morrison's old friend from his TCA days, Bruce Baird, announced that he would retire at the next election. Morrison had not once taken his eyes off the possibility of moving into federal parliament. Baird retiring from Cook was his opportunity. He and Baird had had many dealings before and were likely still 'friendly associates'. Everything Morrison had been working towards over the years, the deals he had made, the contacts he had fostered and the networking to build his profile, came to fruition in that one moment in the safe Liberal seat of Cook. There was only one problem - Michael Towke. Towke won preselection easily - defeating Morrison by 82 votes to 8. Towke had a stellar record - he was a Lebanese Christian, a degree in engineering and an MBA. He was in the army reserve and volunteered at St Vincents De Paul when he wasn't working in his job as a telecommunications engineer. By all accounts he was the perfect candidate for Cook. Not long after the preselection, a campaign of defamation started against him. By the account in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2009, "two senior people in the Liberal party went through Towke's nomination papers to find every possible discrepancy and weakness. Then they started calling selected journalists to tell them Towke was a liar". The ensuing smear campaign nearly broke Towke and ruined his political career. He was disendorsed as Liberal candidate and Morrison won the second ballot easily. Towke was later able to take News Ltd - News Corp to court to clear his name and receive a payout of $50,000. News Ltd were willing to pay more for his story to remain confidential, but he refused. "Morrison clearly had backers who wanted him to get the seat". "These guys were prepared to ruin my life." said Towke. Who the two senior figures in the Liberal party were remains a public mystery - but their identity is known in certain government circles. That information would have been well and truly buried by Morrison years ago.
It is apparent that Morrison is prepared to do almost anything to achieve his goal to attain positions of power. Morrison may not have been directly responsible for Towke's demise but it was clear that there were those who wanted him there and he was prepared to stand aside and watch another man's career be destroyed to get what he wanted. A better man may not have allowed that to happen. Morrison is not that better man.
He went on to win the seat of Cook in 2007. There was a two-party swing of over six percent against him. Morrison won with 52% of the primary vote. 'In 2010 he was appointed to the front bench of the opposition and following the Coalition's victory in 2013, he became immigration minister under Tony Abbott' - developing a reputation as hard-line with his controversial approach to asylum seekers, which included the 'stop the boats' policy. A lack of transparency was also apparent regarding what was happening in our offshore detention facilities. Stopping the boats became Morrison's new mantra and he justified it by claiming he had the safety of the boat people at its heart. In 2013, Morrison "instructed departmental and detention centre staff to refer to asylum seekers as illegal arrivals and as detainees - rather than clients". This was in opposition to the previous Labor government's directive to call asylum seekers "irregular maritime arrivals.. in recognition of the fact that it is not illegal under Australian domestic law or international law to claim asylum". At the time Morrison claimed it was not his intention to make the claim that it was illegal to claim asylum - but by changing the narrative and the language used to demonise asylum seekers - it was certainly a deliberate attempt to develop a reality that simply wasn't true.
As immigration minister, Morrison was also responsible for launching Operation Sovereign Borders - the Abbott government strategy aimed at stopping unauthorised boats from entering Australian waters. Cabinet documents were unearthed in 2018 that revealed in 2013 Morrison agreed to 'mitigation strategies' that would make it impossible for asylum seekers to be granted permanent protection visas. In essence, a lot of the issues and problems that families like the Tamil family from Biloela have faced over the years can be traced back to Morrison and his agenda when he was immigration minister. "In 2014, the Australian Human Rights Commission delivered a report to the government which found that Morrison failed in his responsibility to act in the best interests of children in detention during his time as minister". Morrison tried to justify his actions by saying that "the government must continue with actions that work.. and he could not allow his feelings as a father get in the way". Also in 2014, legislation passed that gave Morrison as immigration minister more powers in dealing with asylum seekers, including the ability to return, detain without charge and refuse access to the Refugee Review Tribunal.
Morrison didn't stay long in immigration and in 2014 he was appointed as Minister for Social Services. He tried to soften his image as a 'people' person and a minister who was concerned about families and childcare, which was offset by the actual damage that he managed to do by developing the initial planning for Robodebt. In May 2015, while Morrison was Minister for Social Services, 'the 2015-16 budget announced 'Strengthening the Integrity of Welfare Payments" with data matching from 2010-11 to 2012-13 - spending $240.4 million to give a net savings of $3.7 billion.' By July 2016 the 'Online Compliance Intervention' was launched. A debt collection program that forced vulnerable people, primarily on welfare, into paying thousands of dollars of debt. This program was later proven to be unlawful and the government more than likely knew it was unlawful when it was first implemented. Over 2000 people would commit suicide after receiving a Centrelink debt notice and over 300,000 debts were unlawfully recouped by the government via Robodebt. The government denied all liability while reaching a $1.8 billion settlement with nearly 400,000 welfare recipients. The government have refused to release information on legal advice along with a copy of executive minutes to the social services minister from early 2015 - and in August 2021 made another public interest immunity claim in an effort to keep the information secret - saying "it would possibly prejudice the Commonwealth in relation to litigation around the scheme".
Morrison had moved on from social services by the time Online Compliance Intervention was underway - but he is no less culpable as he was the minister who developed the idea. He was social services minister for less than twelve months before being appointed as treasurer in the Turnbull government in 2015. A reward, perhaps, for allowing Turnbull to oust Abbott in 2015 as prime minister. While Morrison said he had voted for Abbott, he did not encourage those who aligned with him to do the same. He had actively supported Malcolm Turnbull in his bid to become prime minister. Had he encouraged support for Abbott, it was quite possible that he would have remained prime minister.
Morrison had said more than once that he had no aspirations of becoming treasurer. He said it after promoting his plan to overhaul the childcare subsidy system which was said to have overshadowed then treasurer, Joe Hockey. He said he was offered the job of treasurer by Tony Abbott during the coup while clinging to his leadership and he said he declined. Yet he became treasurer in 2015, less than twelve months after he was appointed minister for social services. In the much-coveted role as treasurer that Morrison claimed he didn't want, he presided over a tanking economy, falling disposable incomes and record-low wage rises. Between 2014 and 2017 there 'was a run of four deficits deeper than $37 billion. This was during a global trade and profits boom'. This has never happened before to any government in Australia. As treasurer, Morrison also took $1.2 billion from aged care in the 2016-17 budget. "This contributed to the cumulative decline over time in aged care spending identified by the royal commission as totalling $9.8 billion in 2018-19".
Morrison as treasurer had nothing to be proud of - and even less so considering he was still involved in the implementation of Robodebt. He also had a habit of leaking government policy options to gauge public reaction which put him at odds with Malcolm Turnbull. Turnbull would later describe this behaviour in his book, 'A Bigger Picture', as "using leaks to ingratiate himself with journalists and newspapers - especially New Corp's Simon Benson and editors like Chris Dore and Paul Whittacker". While immigration minister, Morrison had approximately seventy media staff plus an additional thirty people working in media and events for customs and border protection - which was a considerable expansion on the preceding years for immigration ministers. He would continue his pattern of media control and take it a step further in his role as minister for social services, employing over 50 people in communications but taking control of what his communications team could respond to. "The fact that Morrison took ninety-nine percent of media enquiries out of the hands of his public servants showed he was obsessed with control and secrecy - no matter the portfolio". After Morrison became prime minister this incessant need to control the narrative and the image that he presented to those around him magnified.
How Morrison became prime minister is a mystery, unless you believe it was his duplicity that eventually got him there. He will tell you himself that he was 'ambitious for' Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister - right before he stabbed him in the back to become prime minister himself. But he has also told others as far back as fifteen years ago that 'the Lord wanted him to be prime minister'. He tells us he played no part in the coup that deposed Turnbull and it was all Dutton's idea but that couldn't be further from the truth. While Dutton had ruthlessly made a play for leadership, Morrison was allegedly working behind the scenes to maintain control of the numbers for his own purpose. There were two internal leadership spill ballots. The first was on 21 August 2019 when Peter Dutton submitted himself for candidacy for leadership. Turnbull defeated Dutton 48 votes to 35. Dutton, obviously buoyed by what he thought was a good show of numbers - called for a second spill. This time, after Turnbull stepped down, it was Morrison who emerged the victor, defeating Dutton by 45 votes to 40. It has been claimed that Scott Morrison had been plotting and working on his numbers for some time before Dutton called for a spill and actively worked with his supporters to inflate Dutton's numbers in the first spill to destabilise Turnbull's leadership - utilising those same supporters to give their vote to Morrison to win against Dutton in the second spill. As Turnbull has described Morrison as "a lifelong political operator and a control freak", I find it difficult to believe that Morrison just 'happened' to have orchestrated his win and the numbers to become prime minister in just a few days. This was well planned and well executed. It had been known for quite some time that Dutton was going to move against Turnbull and there were many in the party who considered Dutton to be a loose cannon - and a step up to an even harder right, an unpredictable stance that many in the party did not want to go. Turnbull reflects in his book that as early as 2014 Morrison had made it clear that Tony Abbott had to go and that Morrison saw himself as his natural successor. He had been merely biding his time and gathering supporters. I have no doubt that despite the bad polling that Malcolm Turnbull had received while prime minister - if Morrison had not been working in the background to control the numbers - there would have been no second spill and Turnbull would have remained prime minister. Morrison had once controlled Abbott's demise - and he again took control of the numbers to bring on Turnbull's demise to attain what he most desired - the position of prime minister.
Morrison's tenure as prime minister has been fraught with scandal and large-scale pork barrelling. He called his election win in 2019 'a miracle', but it was more likely the amount of money he was throwing into selected communities in the lead up to the election that had a greater impact on his win. "In recent years, the Coalition has ramped up spending by means of “delegated legislation”. This is where the government allocates grants using a mechanism that bypasses parliament and obscures decisions from public view. In the federal election period between 1 March and 23 May 2019, almost $2 billion in grants across 20 programs were effectively rubberstamped through regulations". The sports rorts affair is an example of how the Morrison government used public funding to campaign in seats that were for the most part not recommended by Sports Australia but were in designated, colour-coded party seats. Sports rorts was just the tip of the iceberg - in the Safer Communities Fund '91 per cent of funding ended up in Government-held, independent or marginal Labor seats'. And let's not forget the $660 million car park pork barrell - with $389 million of that spent in one day - the day before Morrison called the 2019 federal election. It should be noted that the staffer from the prime minister's office who was involved in the sports rorts affair was also involved in decisions regarding allocation of car park funding via the $660 million. It should also be noted that there was 'a top-twenty marginals tracking sheet for awarding the projects'. Not unlike a spreadsheet, I would imagine.
Morrison may have been able to navigate the pork barrelling for the most part with spin, sailing through to the next election on hubris and waffle alone had it not been for one crisis after another since the bush fires of late 2019. His lack of leadership and Hawaiian sojourn while Australia country burned was a portent of things to come.
The common thread throughout the last eighteen months has been Morrison's willingness to pass responsibility onto others and unwillingness to admit fault. After the Ruby Princess debacle Morrison pushed the blame onto the NSW state government and their health department, while the Commonwealth Inspector General of Biosecurity found that the federal government agriculture department had made 'a number of mistakes that likely contributed to the Covid-19 disaster'. Morrison and his government have navigated the pandemic and the vaccinations in a similar fashion. They have pushed the blame and responsibility for quarantine and vaccinations back onto state governments while protecting the interests of themselves and, at times, the Berejiklian government. After the initially well-received pandemic relief with extra funding for Jobseeker recipients and additional funding for businesses affected by the pandemic of $130 billion, it was later found that the government had 'overestimated' the Jobkeeper wage subsidy program by $60 billion. While acknowledging the error, Morrison tried to turn the mistake into a win for "Australians who wouldn't have to borrow as much money to pay it back" and were better off because of it. Those who profited the most from Jobkeeper were not employees - as intended - but companies who did exceedingly well throughout 2020 despite the pandemic, posting profits despite downturns in trade and the economy. Many companies who registered for Jobkeeper were not only earning higher profits during this time, they were paying increased dividends to shareholders. During this time, many people who were not eligible for financial support during the pandemic were slipping through the cracks while the government dug in to defend their position on pandemic support. Morrison played down the rortfest that Jobkeeper had become, bringing the focus back to the many workers who were also benefiting - saying "It's called Jobkeeper for a reason, to keep people in jobs, and that's what its primary purpose was and we believe that's what its primary purpose should be". While Morrison was pointing out how many workers have benefited from Jobkeeper, he was negating just how flawed the Jobkeeper qualifying scheme was. There were no checks on company profits while they were receiving funding and there was no transparency or public register - as there had been in New Zealand for businesses receiving equivalent funding.
Freedom of information, scrutiny and accountability are Morrison's kryptonite. He would take that further with regard to the companies involved in Jobkeeper and access to National Cabinet records. Recently the federal government moved to block a push in the Senate to reveal the top 10,000 companies that received the Jobseeker subsidy and made profits from it. The government also moved to block access under freedom of information with a bill to stop the release of "any minutes from the self-proclaimed bipartisan National Cabinet that has been effectively running the country by decrees since the Covid-19 pandemic first hit". In the weeks before, the AAT ruled that the National Cabinet was not a 'genuine cabinet and therefore its minutes and records are NOT exempt under the Freedom of Information Act". Desperate times for Morrison - who would like to stifle all public knowledge of exactly what transpired in the National Cabinet. I suggest two things - the government has something to hide and/or Morrison is sticking to his mantra of control by secrecy. His 'keep them in the dark and feed them bullshit' edict has served him well since his ascension to the pulpit as the PM of propaganda.
The demise of fair and equitable governance has accelerated under Morrison's prime ministerial reign. It has moved past the point of redemption and into a minimalist government that is barely present unless it involves opportunities to exploit its position - a position that has began to morph into something resembling a loudspeaker of financial opportunity for business interests at the expense of democracy. Conventions that have traditionally kept ministerial behaviour in check are disappearing - led in part by Morrison's own habitual secretive behaviour, questionable past and trademark avoidance of responsibility. Morrison's influence on the current decrepit state of affairs in this government cannot be overstated. He has learned that through duplicity and an arrogant disregard of rules and regulations - except when it suited him - he will achieve his goals - and will plot and scheme to keep himself there.
The Coalition has also been chipping away at our freedom of information and our right to fight against injustice for some time. Under Morrison they continue to reinforce an environment of secrecy and anybody who speaks out against them are silenced. Whistleblowers Witness K, Bernard Collaery, David McBride and Richard Boyle - who should be protected for coming forward - are prosecuted, some in 'secret trials' that the public are not allowed to witness. Members of the public and journalists are threatened by members of parliament, their homes and places of business raided by the Australian Federal Police and others sued for defamation. Media - in particular News Corp - are backed by the government and the ACCC to pursue Google and Facebook for 'stealing; News Corp content - which in turn becomes an exercise in how much the government can assist news outlets make more money and give more influence and control to the government.
The transparency surrounding the 2020-21 budget was also dismal. There were almost 400 items marked as 'not for publication'. Marking items in a budget 'NFP' have a tendency to attract suspicion that is not unwarranted. It is possible that allocation of money that is not for publication will be used for unscrupulous purposes by unscrupulous members of parliament looking to allocate funding 'to organisations that support the government in some way'. It has been found using these methods that Crosby Textor, who are aligned to the Liberal Party, was awarded a $5 million grant to conduct research. The National Covid-19 Committee was merely an exercise in allocating taxpayer dollars to a group of lobbyists - mining and resources executives - 'to lobby the government' on limited tender and nothing to show for the expense. Government-business separation has disappeared and the government has morphed into a money-making machine for its vested interests. There are many examples of political favouritism via the Morrison government for business - too many to mention here - but in contrast very few interactions with respect to the social welfare of its own citizens - other than persecution and ways to elicit a budget saving from our most vulnerable.
Morrison tends to remove himself from emotional attachment to contentious social issues unless it suits a promotional purpose. He comes across as detached, devoid or false. As a narcissist, it is almost impossible for him to relate to empathy. He demonstrates emotional ability through other people. 'How would Jenny feel?' 'I discussed this with Jenny'. He also removes himself from past responsibility just as easily. He discusses past mistakes he has made - separating himself from fault. 'It was a job that had to be done in my capacity as..' He places emphasis on others when passing the buck or relating to an emotion - their fears, their thoughts, their concerns, their hurt or their pain. With regard to the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins - it was apparently only his wife who could clarify the enormity of the situation by reminding Morrison to think of his daughters. Fair enough, but it is a concern when Morrison feels he needs to tell us about it in an effort to make him look and feel more emotionally engaged and sympathetic to Ms Higgins' experience. We were, as a nation of women, unconvinced of any of this when Morrison failed to take the March For Justice rally and the MeToo movement seriously, continued to stall on investigations, recommendations and implementation of anything tangible that would honour and protect women not only in his government, but in society itself.
As Morrison continued to skirt around the mantle of responsibility, he also made it clear he believes it is not his job to rein in errant members of parliament from doing the same. It may have something to do with the fact that the Morrison government only have a one-seat majority - or it may merely be a reflection of an absent prime minister who has in some way always made a habit of distancing himself from the fray of blame. 'It's not my job' - in relation to all manner of subject matter has been uttered by him on many occasions. It has become a blame shifter - when he, in all likelihood should have probably done his job in the first place. Typing in 'Scott Morrison' and 'it's not my job' into any search engine will produce a multitude of results - all with stories of him shirking responsibility and denying culpability by using variations of 'it not being his job'. He has uttered it so many times it has become a reflex action - which magnified during the pandemic when Morrison virtually handed over the country's leadership to the states. This was in part to distance himself from any adverse outcomes and reduce the risk of blow back. The pandemic was a national emergency and instead of stepping up, as many prime ministers have done before him in times of disaster - Morrison allowed the states and territories to control the outcome by denying responsibility - but claiming the successes as his own.
Morrison fervently believes that he has 'been chosen by God' to be prime minister of Australia. He also believes himself to be a Christian, but his brand of Pentecostalism is removed from the traditional Christian values of service, humbleness, love, compassion, respect. Morrison doesn't believe in climate change - because the future is in the hands of God and we are all headed for judgement. If climate change signals the end of times - then so be it. He is unmoved by suffering, is arrogant, insolent and judgemental of those he feels are beneath him. He believes that God helps those who help themselves - and while happy to help those who have already helped themselves to government funding through government tender - he is alternatively unlikely to help others who need it the most. Morrison excuses himself from the responsibility of providing even the most basic of extra government assistance to welfare recipients - because, with respect, they need to get off their bludging asses and go forth to help themselves. "I believe in a fair go for those who have a go" - fits in with the prosperity theology that is a core belief of Pentecostalism. Those who have accumulated wealth are good and deserving. The more wealth, the more deserving. Poor and vulnerable people are bad and less deserving of reward because they aren't trying hard enough. Pentecostals also believe that leading a 'Godly life' will result in good health and wellbeing - which is bad news for those who are disabled, unwell or have a mental illness. Perhaps this is another reason for the constant stripping of funding of the NDIS, medical and hospital services and aged care. They aren't considered essential in the great scheme of things. Droughts, bushfires and floods don't require insight or input as they are a part of God's will and all the resources we have to offer, including fossil fuels, are provided by God to be utilised and exploited. A dramatic insight perhaps, into the thought processes of a Pentecostal - but if Morrison remotely subscribes to the hard-core Pentecostal beliefs - then we are in trouble. He is more than up for it with regard to his admission to "practicing the evangelical traditional laying-on of hands and praying while working" at a national Christian convention.
Where do we go from here with a pulpit-loving, personalised-prosperity preaching Pentecostal prime minister who habitually shirks responsibility, who refuses to apologise for even the most minor infraction to avoid accountability and is quite content to allow his ministers to fly under the radar without the threat of a federal ICAC hanging over their heads? A prime minister who increases the secrecy of government, often legislating or introducing bills to avoid scrutiny of cabinet while reducing the freedom of others, silencing them through litigation and costly secret trials that could result in gaol time for speaking out?
Nowhere. We don't move forward socially, economically, financially, intellectually or spiritually. In the end, we all suffer from the ineffectual ministrations of a false prophet who thinks he should be prime minister.
There is only one answer to this putrid stagnation. Change.