Scott Morrison has given this election his all, with very little assistance from his colleagues, and even less from a party organisation that might be more disunited and ineffective and less nimble than the parliamentary Liberal Party itself.
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It was never the fact that he was not morally or intellectually up to the task of being prime minister, even in its darkest hours, but he has, as campaigner done far better for his party than he has for it or the nation as its leader.
He may even succeed in dragging the party over the line next Saturday.
I doubt that he will, but his chances of doing so might be as much as 25 per cent, and, there is still the possibility that a reasonable Coalition showing could produce a Senate in which the combined ALP-Greens vote falls well short of being able to get legislation through. A Coalition determined to be absolutely bloody-minded, in the sense that Tony Abbott tried, without great success between 2010 and 2013, or, as the Coalition would claim, Labor, the Greens and an erratic assortment of independents did between 2013 and 2019, would give us three more years of dysfunctional management and administration of the government and of the country.
One senses that if Morrison did succeed, no one would be more surprised than his party and perhaps himself. He has been Prime Minister for nine months without an agenda, other than the hope of re-election, and the election campaign has not served to show what the Coalition hopes or plans to do if re-elected, other than to do much as it has been doing. A re-elected Morrison may have somewhat more authority over his party than he has exhibited so far. But, it must be remembered, Morrison has not seethed with the frustration of Malcolm Turnbull, lacking the capacity and the guts to do what he wanted because of conservative opposition. If Morrison has had aspirations of his own, he has not shared them with his party or the electorate, even as his colleagues have made him campaign as a one-man band, nor bridled as he has said he will be the one making the decisions.
He has stuck to his script. Perhaps he has sometimes been inventive or opportunistic in taking advantage of circumstances, or of slips by Labor. But it has not caused him to deviate from the fundamental message about the danger of Labor. The Coalition campaign has been almost entirely negative - focused wholly on attacking Labor policies, predicting the ruination of the economy, taxation unto death, and, perhaps alien invasion, (though they cannot say this too loudly after the Christchurch mosque massacre).
The positive message he would have voters adopt - about the prospect of heaven if enough are enraptured - is a second-tier theme to be derived from an understanding that Labor will be hell. The physical and spiritual geography of his paradise is not spelt out, other than by the impression that it will ultimately involve more tax cuts, a more certain surplus, and fewer migrants.
Some may think the passion and the discipline with which Morrison has stuck to his script reflects some certain knowledge from his pollsters that he is on to a winner that can take him home, provided he does not let voters get distracted. Possible, but it is much more likely he is acting on advice that this is his best line of attack, because there are no better lines, either of significant Coalition promises, or types of attack on the Labor Party. It might, in short, represent the strategy that gives a slight prospect of success, if events work Morrison's way, or Labor makes a significant stumble, or the best chance possible of minimising the number of seats the Coalition will lose. It reads rather more like a save-the-furniture strategy than of a plan to surf voter optimism about the future under his leadership.
He may have succeeded in raising some doubts about the alternative economic plan and the competence of those who have formulated it. Shorten, in particular, has seemed at times caught out by a lack of command of detail, or a failure to workshop, and kill, lines of attack about vagueness of estimates. The political effect of some of that uncertainly may soon decline given the release of Labor costing estimates on Friday. Particularly if the costings underline Labor's argument that its offerings of greater expenditure in key areas of health, education and child care come from the war chest it has because of its different approach to revenue raising. All the more so if they sell the idea that this bigger war chest also provides a plan (though, as with the Liberals, no certainty) of a budget surplus.
Labor, as predicted, has gone more negative over the past week, even as it has attempted to continue to hold aloft its promises about benefits for those who vote for it. But it has hardly scraped the surface of some issues that raise questions about the Coalition's own economic competence, its administrative competence, and its moral fitness to govern, or at least to be suffered to govern any longer.
Or at the disappointing records of an array of ministers, including, on the Liberal side, Peter Dutton, Christopher Pyne, Michaelia Cash, Melissa Price, Angus Taylor, and, on the National side, Barnaby Joyce, David Littleproud, Matt Canavan, and Michael McCormack.
It's the government that gave Australia a second-rate National Broadband Network for costs higher than the one that was ideologically trashed, apparently to suit Murdoch interests. It's the government of the remorseless and pitiless war on the poor, symbolised by robo-debt.
The government that made a science of mistreating people who had sought refuge here from war and persecution, through a department that has seemed to comprehensively mismanage every significant contract it has managed.
It's a government which has, over the past six years, continued to hand over responsibility for supervising Australian financial institutions to the institutions themselves. This has produced more disastrous results for the Australian economy, and to ordinary Australians, and for Australia's reputation, than the global financial crisis had for Australians in 2008. Ministers who almost abolished consumer protections in banking and financial advice industries at the behest of the banks (major contributors to the Liberal Party), then resisted any inquiry into an epidemic of private sector business dishonesty, on the basis that it represented only a few bad apples.
The Coalition's problems have been compounded by its own internal failures to develop, debate and promote ideas and ideals.
A government that supervised, but failed to notice, blatant rip-offs and fraud, and an ethical abyss that disgraced the leadership and management of our leading banks, as well as some of Australia's great leaders of capital - as it happens, mostly Liberal Party mates and donors. A government that made a fetish of removing "unnecessary" regulation, and that deliberately weakened the power and the resources of timid and insipid watchdogs. If Labor was really going for the kill might it not be asking more loudly whether the gang that gave us this are fit to be trusted with another chance for sound and conservative management?
It's a government that has attempted, sometimes successfully, to politicise and militarise national security, and compromised the integrity and independence of police functions. A government that tips off the press after police give it a "heads up" that it is about to devote an absurd number of police resources into a raid that, the government hopes, will do political damage to Bill Shorten. An Attorney-General, and others, who have stacked quasi-judicial tribunals with persons with obvious Liberal Party sympathies, with the effect of tainting the reputation and authority of Australia's tribunal systems. Just as it has compromised most government statutory boards and authorities, and not only by putting its partisans in charge, but by seeking to remove anyone not judged to be a "warrior" in its cause. A government that has embarrassed the Queen by announcing a new vice-regal appointment to take office well after this government's term of office, in spite of public requests from the leader of the opposition, and likely prime minister, that the appointment be delayed until after the election.
A government that has sought both to resist any idea of a powerful commission against corruption, or more effective systems of transparency and accountability. That has doled out half a billion dollars to a miner's club for Great Barrier Reef projects, and the same amount of money, without process, for an unnecessary and wrong-headed war memorial theme park extension. A government that has been consciously ineffectual about climate change, and that is positively misleading about the job it has done in that area. A governments whose management of the Murray Darling river system raises questions of mismanagement and drastic effects on the environment.
This is not to say strong criticisms of such matters have not been made. But they have hardly provided a loud and consistent theme which by itself shows time ought to be up for the Coalition. That's not because Labor has proven anything about the superiority of collectivism versus individualism. It's just because it has become evident the current lot have become complacent, have run out of ideas, and are not addressing the major problems besetting the nation. Maybe an incoming Labor government will get to that same point after a few years in government, leaving it for the people to heave them out too for a chastened and revived Coalition. The Morrison government's primary problem is rather like that of any state government in its last days; it is not managing public affairs well, and is in denial of the fact that its power needs regular renewal at the polling booth.
There was a time when Commonwealth politics and administration ran on somewhat higher principles. National government was more complex, involved more statecraft and imagination, and was a much more significant and open debate and contest of ideas. A contest fought not only in Parliament between parties of different ideology, but in a dialogue with interests, lobbies, the media and the public, with the application of ideas and policies being implemented by a professional and accountable public service. To an extent significantly greater than its predecessors, this government has wrecked institutions, conventions and old principles of sound government. New ones must be invented, or old ones restored.
The Coalition's problems have been compounded by its own internal failures to develop, debate and promote ideas and ideals. It is not enough focused on honest government, addressing the challenges that face the nation. Particularly climate change. The Liberals are failing to sell a coherent vision of an Australia that will attract and inspire its population, and the leadership required for the task.
Some of the wreckers from the more reactionary side of the party will deny the party has been weakened by a lack of a real debate. Hasn't that been what all of the strife and disunity, and changes of leadership have been about? Alas, it has actually been rather more about personalities and ambitions. It is very difficult to argue that the central point upon which Liberals have divided - climate change - amounts to a battle of ideas. The cynic has to suspect the unwillingness to spell out a vision for the future, other than in clichés about taxes, or growth, or having a go, reflects an incapacity to find a future the party can sell or unite around.
Shorten and his team, notably Chris Bowen, deserve considerable credit for developing positive ideas and policies to take to the electorate, given that it was always certain they would be attacked on "where's the money coming from?" lines. It is clear they focus-grouped the goodies on offer, such as childcare, cancer treatment, vocational training and improved emergency departments at hospitals. These are by no means necessarily the most urgent tasks facing the nation. It's a same-old Labor agenda.
It's not so clear that that they have done enough thinking yet on more important challenges. Such as an Australian defence and foreign policy addressing new regional and international uncertainties. That's not been much talked about it this election, but that's because Labor is unwilling to break ranks with the government. There's debate about the real - rather than the confected issues - of refugees and immigration. There's the need to reform the checks and balances in our systems of governance so that misgovernment and maladministration will be detected and punished. There's foreign aid, Indigenous affairs, and a serious reform of higher education funding. There are questions of dignity and equity in old age, as well as intergenerational wealth transfer.
And overwhelming all of these are questions about climate change and continuing environmental degradation. That's not to mention a national plan to create sustainable jobs and industries in the future. Labor has something to say about most of these things, but they are not sufficiently a part of the national discourse. Consensus between experts, when that is achieved, does not substitute for an informed national decision to address such challenges in a practical and effective manner. Even less can it do so when the government, and the party of government, are not engaged with the players.
Without a genuine discussion on such problems and policies - or even on the policies Labor has put up - it seems to me that Morrison's lone but vigorous crusade is doomed to fall short of the magic number 76.
And does not deserve otherwise.
Jack Waterford is a former editor of The Canberra Times.
Jack Waterford is a former editor of The Canberra Times.
Jack Waterford is a former editor of The Canberra Times.
