Scott Morrison rejects big ideas but one has seeped into his approach to borders
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May 2, 2021 — 5.30am
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The Prime Minister, so the common refrain goes, is a pragmatist. He and his closest advisers reject big ideas and the ivory towers in which they are debated. This is a point of anti-elitist pride. The Quiet Australians don’t care about the philosophical waffles of wattle-wobbling sophists.
It has also been the approach behind Morrison’s key achievements. By tamping down the internal culture war that had raged for a decade within the Liberal Party, he put the Coalition in a position to win the 2019 election. Shrugging off Labor’s crowing that “we’re all Keynesians now” as well as the howls from dries on his own side, he and his Treasurer cast aside any thought of returning the budget to surplus and flooded the economy with borrowed cash to keep it afloat during COVID. He has a roadmap on climate change that falls short of the dramatic action or inaction, desired at the extremes, but which is finally setting the nation on a sustainable path to reducing emissions.