Would you pay to hear Scott Morrison speak?

Why is there something rather than nothing? Is there a God? What is consciousness? Who really wrote Shakespeare's plays? Are we alone in the universe? Do we have free will? Why would anyone pay to hear Scott Morrison speak about anything? What are dreams for? Is dark matter responsible for differences in observed and theoretical speed of stars revolving around the centre of galaxies, or is it something else?

There was news this week that the not conspicuously talented former prime minister Scott Morrison "has signed with a talent agency that charges organisations up to $100,000 for speaking engagements with distinguished global thought leaders".

The agency is the Worldwide Speakers Group (WWSG) and Morrison's bio on their website describes him as "the true definition of a leader with a 360-degree worldview".

"During his tenure, Morrison was tasked with several difficulties that required unique and innovative solutions," it reads.

"From managing the public safety of Australians during the pandemic to mitigating an economic crisis, controlling natural disasters, and leading the country while others were at war ... Morrison led Australia with his particular brand of calm decisiveness ... A globalisation mastermind, Morrison lends his boundless influence and experience to audiences around the world."

Some of us will struggle to recognise the Morrison prime minister and prime ministership we knew and endured from this fulsome oil-painting of them. "Calm decisiveness"? "Controlling natural disasters"? A "global thought leader"?

But perhaps WWSG has seen qualities in the man that we were blind to.

There is a famously wise passage at Mark 6:4 in the Bible (possibly the only book Scott Morrison has ever read) where Jesus observes: "A prophet is not without honour except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house."

Jesus meant (and I think he may have been on to something) that when we live cheek by jowl with someone and know all of his small foibles, we may be blind to his towering, globally significant genius.

If paying global audiences are enthralled and awed by Scott Morrison, a man we blinkered Australians imagined was only a fibbing drongo, who is to say that they, the global audiences, are wrong?

I wish Morrison well on this global stage but in my fondness for him, alert him to the dangers his new speaking career pose for his immortal soul.

His speaking engagements will be fabulously remunerative - up to $100,000 a time - and in his press release accompanying WWSG's announcement, one can almost hear Morrison drooling at the thought of his forthcoming earnings.

"I am excited to be joining Worldwide Speakers Group who will help facilitate my growing relationships within the private sector," he drools.

But wait, Mr Morrison! At Matthew 19:24, Jesus, who had no worldly possessions of his own and who was scathing about the filthy rich, warns that it is "easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God".

And yet one feels sure that Scott Morrison, who knows his Bible well and often quotes from it with fundamentalist enthusiasm, is well aware of Jesus's views on the filth of obscene wealth. So surely he, Morrison, plans to give away to the deserving poor all that he earns on the global stage.

And luckily for Mr Morrison and for all wealth-plump Australian Christians, there have never been more poor Australians deserving of help.

This week, the week of the announcement of Morrison's "growing relationships within the private sector", is coincidentally Australia's Anti-Poverty Week, with its harrowing new reports of poverty's ravages here in this lucky and generally bourgeois country.

More than one in eight Australians, 3.319 million of us, live in poverty. At least 116,000 Australians are homeless on any given night and 190,000 households are on waiting lists for social housing. Globally, 700 million are unable to meet their basic daily needs and, for they live on less than $2 a day, will never be able to afford to go and hear Scott Morrison speak.

So, fortunate rich Australian Christians! There has never been a better, more Christ-imitating opportune moment for you to give, and give and give until you are so spiritually slender that you will pass easily through the narrow (but fabulously ornate) gates of the Kingdom of Heaven.

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