Extraordinary And Plenipotentiary Diplomatist July 19 Edition . | Page 19

GLOBAL CENTRE STAGE
leader John Hewson called Fight Back. With that came an
admixture of the various elements that fed into the victories
scored by the Liberal Prime Minister John Howard through
his time in offi ce from 1996 to 2007. The Howard generation
was averse to “the vision thing” so relentlessly promoted
by Keating. Abstractions and broad canvas policies were
hard to budget; mortgages and basic, everyday living were.
In remorseless and shameless fashion, Howard extolled the
aspirational “battler” in his political rhetoric and infected
the Australian voter with a self-calculating, self-interested
cynicism that has been hard to shake.
Morrison’s own touch was a slight adjustment of the
same thing: the heralded quiet Australian. Such Australians
have dreams “to get a job, to get an apprenticeship, to start a
business, to meet someone amazing, to start a family, to buy
a home, to work hard and provide the best you can for your
kids, to save for your retirement and to ensure that when you
are in your retirement you can enjoy it because you have
worked hard for it”.
A specifi c eff ort worth mentioning was his trip to Queensland
last November, a state now being compared, rather clumsily,
to some monster variant of middle, white America. In social
media, a brushfi re had started, suggesting that Queensland be
expelled from the Commonwealth. Certain voters were “so
unhappy, in fact,” noted the broadcaster SBS (May 19, 2019),
“that many are cheekily proposing #Quexit – a move which
would see Queensland cut loose from the rest of Australia.”
A lawyer and political commentator Kate Galloway noted in
Eureka Street (May 21, 2019), “The disrespecting of regional
Queenslanders is [Hillary] Clinton’s ‘basket of deplorable’
all over again.” Queenslanders were accused of being a “low
IQ” population. Forgotten were the “vagaries of government
policies” and the fears about an economy moving from fossil
fuels to renewables.
Labor’s focus on combating climate change and
refocusing the policy drive on energy renewables failed to
fi nd a voice in the regional seats of Queensland. The delays,
and interminable debate on Adani’s proposed Carmichael
Morrison the man of advertising
was always in evidence. When
it came to the damaging fl oods
in North Queensland, Morrison
seemed gauche in his efforts to win
favour by donning military colours
on his trip to Townsville.
Foremost amongst the lessons of 2019 is that Labor must
learn to win in Queensland. Its voters are varied, diverse and,
it should be noted, drawn from a good number of the southern
retiree class that pricked their ears up with suggestions that
their share income, or negative gearing arrangements, might
be aff ected. The Liberal MP Tim Wilson’s insistence that
Labor’s franking credit reforms be seen as a “retiree tax”
were instrumental. As Fairfax contributor Michael Koziol
noted, “The retiree stronghold of Bribie Island was ‘on fi re’
over franking credits. The Coalition threw resources into the
area and ultimately won it for Labor with a 4 percent swing.”
Forgotten in the swirl of recrimination and despair are
those basic if cringe-worthy pursuits Morrison embarked
upon in the short time he warmed the Prime Minister’s seat.
mine in the Galilee Basin bit hard in high unemployment
communities. While the Indian mining giant was promising
pie-in-the-sky fi gures of future employment, Labor’s lack of
clarity on the issue of whether it would stand in the way of
the development, should it be approved by the Queensland
government, caused uncertainty.
At the time, Morrison’s bus journey on the “Scomo
Express” seemed fatuous and clownish. When it took place
in November last year, it was roundly ridiculed by the
Canberra press gallery. That hardly mattered: the new Prime
Minister was making an eff ort to put himself forth as worthy
electoral material in a state that would prove signifi cant in
any future polls. The message then was made in an electoral
register, reassuringly pitched to the sceptical voter: “keeping
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist • Vol 7 • Issue 7 • July 2019, Noida • 19