In the history books, PM Morrison is going down as the shallow, hapless PM who thought he could PR his way to success, while not being bright enough to realise he's not good at PR. This line of attack yesterday was just so inane:
The Liberal Party seems to really be specialising in giving us living examples of the Peter Principle, this last decade. Abbott was perhaps the best example of that, as he arguably gave earlier indications of maybe being a good political operator, only to turn out as PM to be a weirdo with a "mummy" thing going on with his chief of staff. Turnbull's problem was not exactly one I would call a Peter Principle issue; more just a simple lack of courage against the climate change deniers in his own party. But the PP definitely applies to PM Smirko. It's just that it hit very early in his working life, and somehow didn't stop further promotion. Politics can be like that, given it's often a case of "least worst option".
Who's next to take the mantle of "risen to his level of incompetence"? Seems likely it will be Dutton, the potential PM with the weirdest looking head since Federation. The only problem is, you can see the media narrative now: even if he proves the slightest bit effective as a campaigner, journalists will not be able to resist a "surprise! the public is finding him likeable after all" take.
I used to think that about Morrisson and then I realised his PR style wasn't to craft a perfect message. He could never do that. It was.is more to just madly scramble and fumble about - if he says something terrible, he will keep on scrambling and fumbling until he hits a better message. If he hits on a real stinker, something morally execrable that turns all the papers against him - he'll let the first wave of outrage wash over him, and at some point he'll offer a faux-apology or something like that, just throw a few scraps to the media. And in the meantime he'll keep on scrambling to find a new message. And if he hits on a winning PR line, he'll just repeat it.
ReplyDeleteAntony Green makes a good point. If the ICAC had wanted to get rid of Gladys they had the material. There was no leak and she won an election she should not have. Her mistakes were outdone by Daly's.
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