the 'disastrous' Morrison government dissected
- Written by Dennis Altman, VC Fellow LaTrobe University, La Trobe University
Almost a year after the victory of the Albanese government, the defects of its predecessors are increasingly obvious. The competence and teamwork of the current government underline the weaknesses of the Morrison regime. The contrast between the two styles of leadership reminds us that bullying is no substitute for collaboration and empathy.
Review: The Morrison Government: Governing Through Crisis – edited by Brendan McCaffrie, Michelle Grattan and Chris Wallace (UNSW Press).
Future historians will probably be most struck by the impact of COVID during those years, and the extraordinary effect the epidemic had upon everyday life. In The Morrison Government: Governing Through Crisis, there are two chapters on the government’s response to the epidemic: one by Stephen Duckett in the policy section, and the other by Mark Evans and Michelle Grattan on the role of experts and democracy.
Sydney mural, December 2019.
Scott Marsh/AAP
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Mind the gaps
Inevitably, there are gaps in a book of this nature. I would have expected a chapter on immigration and refugee policy. The shameful ongoing treatment of offshore asylum seekers, some of whom have now been imprisoned for longer than most criminals, deserves more than passing attention.
Individual ministers also receive only passing attention, even though some of them – Josh Frydenberg in Treasury, Greg Hunt in Health, Peter Dutton in Defense – were significant figures in the government.
In her chapter on “delegating democracy”, Karen Middleton points to Morrison’s willingness to “jettison the conventions of the Westminster system”, which became most apparent after the election when it was revealed that he had secretly given himself control of some key departments without informing the legally appointed minister. The very title of the book suggests that we are moving towards a semi-presidential system, with a declining understanding of the conventions of cabinet government.
Foreign policy gets a chapter of its own and occasional references elsewhere, usually to AUKUS or to what Michelle Grattan aptly terms the “new Anglosphere”. In his chapter, Tony Walker is so obsessed with Australia’s relations with China and the United States that there is no discussion of relations with Indonesia or Papua New Guinea, or indeed of Australia’s declining foreign assistance, now amongst the lowest of rich countries. Even major foreign policy challenges, such as the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the continued military repression in Myanmar go unmentioned.
Even odder is the omission throughout the book of any discussion of the war in Ukraine, which commenced three months before the 2022 election, although Walker does refer in passing to the “rules-based international order that is now in danger of fragmenting”. One does not need to be an apologist for the autocratic gangsters in Moscow and Beijing to point out that these rules are essentially the product of western hegemony, and themselves need to be interrogated.
What is lacking, above all, in The Morrison Government is a sense of what it felt like to live through those three years and how this was reflected in the collapse of Morrison’s authority. In her chapter on women and equality, Pia Rowe writes about the government’s failure to agree on a religious discrimination bill, but the religiosity of Morrison, apparently shared by the Governor General, gets little attention.
As a republican, I note that the contributors have written almost 300 pages about the Australian government without discussing the head of state.
Allegra Spender, independent Member for Wentworth, delivering her maiden speech to parliament, August 1, 2022.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Like most other political commentaries of the period, the book devotes considerable space to the emergence of the Teals, including a chapter on Allegra Spender’s successful campaign in Wentworth. Given how much has already been written about the Teals, it might have been more profitable to have looked at the success of the Greens in winning three inner Brisbane seats, or the way in which the collapse of the Liberal Party in Western Australia gave the incoming government a slender majority in the House of Representatives. Nor does the book feature any analysis of the remarkable success of Dai Le in winning what should be one of Labor’s safest Sydney seats.
In her introduction, Grattan states:
While the Morrison government could claim some successes, it was ultimately felled by a combination of deficiencies, especially in the leadership of the prime minister himself.
Anyone who doubts her judgement will find much to support it in this book.
Authors: Dennis Altman, VC Fellow LaTrobe University, La Trobe University 
