Like the fictions of “Labor bullying” that obsessed the press gallery recently, claims from multiple parties that Scott Morrison made offensive comments about Michael Towke’s background — in his quest to undermine the man who’d thrashed him in the Cook preselection — are unlikely to reach out into the real world.
To be fair, some in the press gallery have diligently followed up on Concetta Fierravanti-Wells’ dramatic budget-night speech: Karen Middleton at The Saturday Paper followed by David Crowe at Nine secured the statutory declarations confirming Fierravanti-Wells’ claims. They allege Morrison used Towke’s Lebanese heritage to undermine his win in Cook, and that Morrison wrongly claimed Towke was “Moslem”.
Morrison has form on the issue. In 2011, Lenore Taylor, at what was then Fairfax, reported that Morrison had urged shadow cabinet to try to exploit what he claimed were community concerns about Muslim immigrants and their inability to “integrate”.
Morrison denied the Taylor story, like he denies the claims by Towke and others. But Morrison always denies. That’s the basis for many of the 50+ lies and falsehoods that Crikey can demonstrate he’s told in recent years — a blunt denial that something which demonstrably occurred, or that he clearly said, ever happened.
And it could be that a remarkable list of people — preselection rivals, factional opponents, parliamentary colleagues, shadow cabinet and cabinet colleagues, journalists, former prime ministers, international leaders, senators from other parties — are all motivated by bitterness or disgruntlement towards Morrison and are prepared to make things up about him.
But while the belief that Morrison is a habitual liar has slowly penetrated first the press gallery and then the wider public consciousness — simply because he’s done it so often — the Cook preselection, now 15 years in the past, isn’t likely to register. For some racist voters, it might improve their view of Morrison to hear allegations he’s an anti-Muslim bigot, and perhaps lure them back from One Nation and other extremist parties. For most, they’ll merely hear about one politician backstabbing another and, well, what’s new about that?
The cost for Morrison is in the thwarted budget-selling campaign, which almost from the get-go has been accompanied by questions about Fierravanti-Wells and, now, evidence to back up her claims. For a budget that is intended to be the centrepiece of the government’s efforts to close a ten-point polling gap in six weeks, every day last week was crucial given the media cycle now rapidly moves on from even the biggest-spending budget.
For now, we wait for Morrison to call the election. Everything else is a sideshow. But Morrison can’t call the election until legal proceedings involving the NSW Liberal Party are sorted out — the very ructions that led Fierravanti-Wells to take up arms last week. The whole sordid affair of the Cook preselection might end up bookending Morrison’s entire career.
