Last week we noted that former prime minister Scott Morrison was looking happier and healthier than he had in years. Now we know why. His (eventual) freedom from the prime ministership and the near certainty (that he’ll never have to face voters in Cook again) flowing on from it means he can indulge in his true passion: fringe-but-disturbingly-influential Christianity!
After successfully using his faith in 2019 to give voters the impression of an inner life and joined-up view of the world (by extension implying the absence of such in his opponent), Morrison largely kept his faith out of the conversation as PM, despite funnelling millions into various religious groups.
So it seemed significant that his last speech as PM was to his Horizon church group. And, further untethered from public approval, Morrison was out west over the weekend, helping the Pentecostal Victory Life Centre church open its “Perth Prayer Tower”. He joined churchgoers in song, high-fived delighted children, and announced that it was God’s plan that he lose office after a single term rife with scandal, corruption and incompetence. All of which wouldn’t be all that surprising, even if he’d done it while more was on the line, politically.
Except this has a few less voter-friendly elements. First, Victory Life is the church founded by tennis legend/bigoted aunt from a sitcom Margaret Court, who was in truly hilariously retrograde form during her address to the crowd, lamenting the number of Wimbledon attendees who were on the “highway to hell“. Yep, she’s moved on from a visceral distaste at same-sex attraction and gender diversity; now the general skylarking, tomfoolery and carousing she saw at Wimbledon is enough to get one sliding down the tunnel to Satan’s living room.
Morrison, for his part, told the crowd that giving into your anxieties is like letting Satan win and, in an eyebrow-raising statement that possibly explains a great deal about his time in office, advised people to put their faith in Christ above governments or, in a weirdly specific aside, the UN:
We trust in Him. We don‘t trust in governments. We don’t trust in United Nations, thank goodness. We don‘t trust in all of these things as fine as they might be and as important as the role that they play. Believe me, I’ve worked in it. But as someone who’s been in it, if you are putting your faith in those things, like I put my faith in the Lord, you are making a mistake. They are fallible.
