Peter Dutton’s management strategy for the revelation of Scott Morrison’s penchant for secretly swearing himself into the roles of his ministers is pretty simple: not much to see here; let’s move on; voters are interested in inflation.
That was already a tricky line to maintain in the halcyon days of, well, before yesterday morning, when the multiple ministries were confined to “just” Health, Finance and Resources. Once we learnt Morrison’s fondness for pinching his colleagues’ ministries had proliferated to include the crucial portfolios of Home Affairs and Treasury, it should have been the moment the opposition leader used to turn on the former prime minister and try to separate himself from the whole sordid Morrison era.
Morrison’s toxicity to the Liberal brand was amply demonstrated on May 21. Now he’s polluting the brand still more. Even his own colleagues are furious with him for his deceit. A senior frontbencher, Karen Andrews, wants him gone from politics. But Dutton — with other senior figures such as Barnaby Joyce — are sticking with the downplaying script.
No big deal, stay calm, folks. Stay calm over something one of Dutton’s senior colleagues thinks warrants Morrison being given the flick. Stay calm over his own colleagues being deceived by Morrison. Hell, Dutton can’t even be sure if he isn’t among the victims of the dial-a-ministry scheme.
The old line is that if you want loyalty in politics, get a dog. That goes doubly so for a man who has betrayed his closest colleagues and supporters. Dutton — who must now know he or Josh Frydenberg should have tried to seize the prime ministership last year in an effort to avert catastrophe — owes no loyalty to his former leader. Yet, inexplicably, he is refusing to take the opportunity to push a deeply unwelcome presence in his ranks out the door.
Indeed, under Dutton’s current strategy, Morrison would remain in Parliament until such time as he decides to leave. How long will that be? Possibly longer than everyone expects. To the extent they were before this, no corporate doors are now likely to open to Morrison; would you want this man with his track record on governance (not to mention leaking to News Corp) on your board? With the international coverage his multiple ministries scheme is receiving, how many speaking gigs on the international rubber chicken circuit will be available?
So there he will sit, on the backbench, a reminder of what is now seen as an appalling era of incompetence, rotten governance and the trashing of political norms. And Dutton will implicitly be endorsing it by backing Morrison to remain.
The answer from John Howard, most explicitly, is that the opposition doesn’t need a byelection right now, suggesting it might lose a safe seat, or it would undermine the chances of the NSW Liberal Party in March next year. But that’s short-term pain; despite the big swing against Morrison in May, Cook is still relatively safe, and its voter profile is less amenable to the appeal of a teal-style independent than coastal suburbs to the north. And even in the worst-case scenario of losing the seat, the opposition is already in an electorally dire position for 2025. If it can’t regain a seat like Cook at a general election its chances of returning to office are slim to none anyway.
The alternative Dutton is opting for is long-term pain, with every day Morrison remaining in Parliament a reminder of his crazy time as prime minister and how Dutton was a senior minister in all that mayhem.
And who knows what else might emerge about Morrison’s time in the top job in the months to come? A man capable of deceiving his colleagues on such a grand scale might have done a lot of other things as well that have yet to come to light. Time for Dutton to wield his authority as leader.
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