Comment

All prime ministers are focused to some degree on being returned to office, but for Morrison it is everything. The time between polling days is a nowhere space to him. There are no great, animating policy issues; there is just winning. It is through this blinkeredness that we might understand Morrison’s approach to China.

If there’s one thing our prime minister loves at the same level that he loves Pentecostal evangelism, it’s Indian food. In fact, I might even wager Scott Morrison loves a curry more than he loves Jesus, given how much more he talks about curries. Over the years, he’s found more uses for curry than MacGyver would have, from an image softener on LinkedIn to a metaphor for multiculturalism in a speech to the armed forces. The man’s never met a pinch of garam masala that he didn’t love.

Next Tuesday the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, will up-end 40 years of Liberal Party ideology with a budget that will hugely increase spending and create deficits as far as the eye can see. The small government, ‘trickle down’ prescriptions championed by United States President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, and zealously advocated by Australia’s conservatives right up until March 2020, will be consigned to history.

Commentators who have discounted the political significance of Morrison’s faith, because of his ambivalent commitment to narrowly defined ‘religious issues’, have been shown that the man himself does not do the same. Of course, there never can be a direct connection between the prime minister’s beliefs and government action. Public policy is always determined by a range of influences. Yet how a leader interprets the world and frames experience remains profoundly important.

There is nothing clever about hinting at a target. Scott Morrison can smile and insinuate, but to the climate it makes no difference. His audio can be muted at a summit and it doesn’t matter because he’s not saying anything. This is how he governs.

It has long been believed that when God speaks, it is only to prophets, poets and madmen. Now we can add Australian prime ministers to that list. While attending the Australian Christian Churches conference on the Gold Coast last week, Scott Morrison revealed that he and Jenny have been called upon to do God’s work.

It may console some Australians to know that their prime minister is doing God’s work. Millions of others are more likely to be confused, and even flabbergasted. Yet courtesy of a scratchy YouTube video, shot at a Pentecostal conference on the Gold Coast last week, Scott Morrison has given us a window into the soul he has otherwise kept shut, sharing with fellow Pentecostals how he sees his beliefs as a mission statement for his prime ministership.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a pause on direct passenger flights between India and Australia, with consideration of further flights to be made by May 15. Australians stranded in India, who make up almost a third of those now stuck overseas for more than a year, now have no way to return home. No other democratic country has placed such extreme measures on its citizens.

Labor is the line. The opposition is at pains to make clear it is not the government, and certain decisions are matters for government. This is true. But on the issue of climate change, the Morrison government is leaning its full weight into pushing Australia backwards.

Not since John Travolta asked to try the $5 milkshake Uma Thurman ordered at Jack Rabbit Slim’s has anyone cared so much about the cost of a milkshake. But it turns out that prices have gone up a bit since 1994. Now, if you want a milkshake to bring all the boys to your yard, you’d better be willing to spend upwards of $3.7 million. At least that’s what the Australian government paid for a series of educational videos around consent, which somehow involves milkshakes, and tacos.