AUSTRALIA VOTED – AN EVENING AFTER THE ELECTION

On Saturday 18 May 2019, Australia voted and the opinion polls were wrong. Prime Minister Scott Morrison pulled off what had been predicted to be an impossible win. In March 2019, at The Sydney Institute, Caroline Overington and Paul Kelly could not see the Coalition winning. On Monday 20 May 2019, author and Associate Editor of The Australian, Caroline Overington, and Paul Kelly, Editor-at-Large at The Australian, author and commentator, returned to the Institute, just two days after the big vote, to assess what happened.

AUSTRALIA VOTED – AN EVENING AFTER THE ELECTION

CAROLINE OVERINGTON

Hello, all you quiet Australians. You not-so-shy Tories.

As you know, I came here last month, talked a lot of nonsense about how Labor was going to win, promised to come back to console you all when Shorten won …

And here we are!

The Messiah from the Shire.  That was the headline on the front of the Australian yesterday.

 People are saying: nobody predicted it but, actually, some News Ltd papers charted a clear path to victory for the Morrison government. All they had to do was hold everything they already had … and put on some extra seats!

They had to win back Wentworth. They’ve done it.

They had to take back some of the seats they lost in Tasmania in 2016. They’ve done it.

They had to win Lindsay. They’ve done it.

They had to hold everything in WA – they’ve done it.

They’ve increased their majority. It’s a remarkable achievement. No prime minister has done that since John Howard. Nobody before him, since Bob Hawke.

I believe in miracles, Morrison said. Fair enough. But he also worked very hard. He did not make a single mistake.

Nobody could have predicted some of the developments in this campaign. Who expected the sudden arrival of a couple of suspected axe murderers from Rwanda? Then, in the last three days of the campaign there came the death of the greatest Labor leader of the post-war era: Bob Hawke.

There was an outpouring of grief. Some within the ALP were keen to present Bill Shorten as Hawke’s natural successor. But the voting public was not prepared to turn their fond memories of the Hawke prime ministership into a vote for Shorten.

And so Scomo is the winner.  He cannot wipe the smile off his face. Good for him.

Not so good for me. I thought Labor would win, because how could they lose? The conservatives hadn’t won a NewsPoll in three years. What changed?

It’s all so easy in hindsight. The leader changed.   They changed leaders. And for once, it worked.

The Coalition put Scott Morrison in the chair. And although we could see it at the time, he’s absolutely perfect for the times. Australians were feeling fed up with being told they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

  That they should be embarrassed about who they are, and what they want from life. For wanting to put their own families first.

Scott Morrison is about as aspirational as it’s possible to be. He wants the best for his family, first. For the country, second. For the world, third. And so do most people.

He came to this election in an unusual position. He was the prime minister – and yet we didn’t really know all that much about him. Normally we know the prime minister. We voted for him. We never voted for Morrison.

And so, he turned up at the Liberal Party launch, and introduced himself.

 He described the moment, aged eleven or twelve, that he met Jenny. He was smitten. As for Jenny she thought: “He’s cute, and all the rest.”

They started dating, and then one day he sat her down on a city bench in Sydney’s Martin Place to say: “Will you marry me?’’ Then he went over to the flower vendor to buy her a nice bouquet. He spoke about a topic that’s hard for men to talk about: he couldn’t get Jenny pregnant.

Their miracle girls — Lily and Abbey – were introduced to the audience, who loved it. His Mum, Marion, was introduced. She takes care of his dad, because Dad’s not well. It was a lovely scene, and do you know what word came to mind? Authentic.

There was something authentic about him. Remember when he invited in the cameras, to see him waving his arms around, belting one out for Jesus? We’re not really into that in Australia, are we? We don’t want people coming over all pious.

But Morrison is a church-going man, always has been. Plenty of Australians, they see that and think: okay, whatever floats your boat.

  Your business, not mine. They like the fact that he’s upfront about it.

This is who I am. This is what I believe. And it makes them think: he seems pretty decent. And if a leader seems decent … well, that’s a good attribute.

He arrived at exactly the right time. He seems concerned not about nonsense, but about ordinary things. Jobs. Power bills. The wellbeing of his own family. It’s not selfish to want to get ahead in life.

But that’s a message that nobody else was selling. Truly, the environment for ordinary Australians had become toxic. On Facebook, there was on Saturday morning a clip going around:

Picture the scene: Inner city types, with tambourines, and wobble boards, dancing around the polling booth, singing: “Vote em out. Vote em out. We’re going to vote these bastards out.” People hate that kind of thing.

I live opposite Bondi Public School – in the bellwether seat of Wentworth! Somebody had taken coloured chalk to the footpath: put the Liberals last! For your grandchildren’s sake!

Again … People rightly take umbrage at the implication that they don’t care about your children, or your grandchildren. You only care about your six investment properties.

Come election time, why would anyone throw their vote toward a party that holds them in contempt? Boomers, in particular, are being told: put your greedy, selfish nature aside, and do something for the climate emergency, what’s wrong with you?

There is a celebrity clique – rich, and Left-leaning – who regularly lecture the rest of us, from on-high.

They know what’s best for you.

The Betoota Advocate currently has a bit of satire up, quoting a greenie who assumes, “Maybe Australia is just full of stupid people who only vote conservative because they aren’t as well educated as he is.” That is actually very close to what celebrities are saying in real life.

I printed out some of the worst of it. Jane Caro’s remarks have been reported elsewhere. She referred to voters as “turds.” In the Herald, yesterday, Ms Caro said she’d had too much to drink. She’s calling for more civility in public life.

Cathy Wilcox, from the Herald, referred to voters as “morons.” Cathy Wilcox, from the Herald, referred to voters as “morons.” Another writer was Tweeting: “I said I’d abandon hope if this happened, but honestly, we can’t afford to … My children are devastated – curled up in more or less foetal positons.”

Another said: “I’m so intrigued. Did those people who voted Liberal not really understand what were voting for, or is it that they only care for themselves?” Also: “Maybe those who voted Labor potentially care more about their country?” Also:  “What an F-ed up, myopic, stupid, self-serving, planet-hating bunch of idiots we live among.”

Ordinary Australians look at this, and be like: okay, you’ve lost me. The idea that conservatives are selfish has taken hold, as has the idea that they don’t care about anyone except themselves.

On the contrary, they care very deeply for other people – in particular the ones that live in their house. They love their families, their kids.

They want to make life better for them, maybe take them away on nice holidays, spoil them a bit.

That’s a basic Australian value. It’s pretty humble. Aspiration drives this country, and it always has. It drives all the great, Western democracies.

Morrison has been mocked for his slogans. If you have a go, you’ll get a go. It’s folksy, but it’s not wrong. Australians do want what he’s having. They do want to get jobs, work hard, find somebody to raise a family with. They do want to save hard, buy a house, enjoy their retirement.

In any case, it took the Left too long to figure out what a threat Morrison was. Tim Blair in the Telegraph yesterday said: “They threw everything at him, including an egg.” It bounced right off.

It seems to me that Morrison took one look at Labor’s redistribution agenda, and thought: I can work with that. It reminded him, I think, of damage done by Mark Latham’s assault on private schools. It was the same class warfare. Again: this is an aspirational country.

People want to be allowed to get ahead. They’re not looking to Morrison for hand-out, or even a hand-up.

 They gave him what looks like 78 seats, in the hope that they’ll be allowed to get on with it.