Niki Savva - Bulldozed: Scott Morrisons fall and Anthony Albaneses rise

Bulldozed

Niki Savva is one of the most senior correspondents in the Canberra Press Gallery. She was twice political correspondent for The Australian , and headed up the Canberra bureaus of both The Herald Sun and The Age . When family tragedy forced a career change, she became Peter Costellos press secretary for six years and was then on John Howards staff for three. Her work has brought her into intimate contact with Australias major political players for more than 40 years. She is a regular columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald , and often appears on ABC TVs Insiders .

Her first book, So Greek , a memoir, provided rare insights into the relationship between Howard and Costello, and the workings of their government. The Road to Ruin , the first volume in what became her trilogy about Australias Coalition governments that ruled from 2013 to 2022, was a bestseller, and won the 2016 General Nonfiction Book of the Year Award at the Australian Book Industry Awards. The second volume, Plots and Prayers , which dealt with the government led by Malcolm Turnbull and the ascension of Scott Morrison, was also a bestseller. In March 2017, the Melbourne Press Club presented Niki with a lifetime achievement award for outstanding coverage of Australian politics as a reporter, columnist, and author.

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Published by Scribe 2022

Copyright Niki Savva 2022

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

Scribe acknowledges Australias First Nations peoples as the traditional owners and custodians of this country. We recognise that sovereignty was never ceded, and we pay our respects to their elders, past and present.

978 1 922585 98 1 (paperback edition)
978 1 922586 84 1 (ebook)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

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To the next generations:
Dana
Andrew, Peter, Laura, Maria
Thomas, Christian
Nicki, Steven

Contents

One:

Two:

Three:

Four:

Five:

Six:

Seven: (and you are a fuckwit)

Eight:

Nine:

Ten:

Eleven:

Twelve:

Thirteen:

Fourteen:

Fifteen:

Sixteen:

Seventeen:

Eighteen:

Nineteen:

Twenty:

CHAPTER ONE

Victory and Damnation

Peter Dutton and Josh Frydenberg knew, months out from the election, that they were headed for disaster under Scott Morrison. They knew, as long as a year before, that if the election became a referendum on Morrison, they would lose. By the end of 2021, they knew, along with almost every other member of the Coalition, including the most prominent members of Morrisons Praetorian Guard, that he was badly damaged, probably beyond repair.

But Dutton had already torn down one Liberal prime minister, so he wasnt about to tear down another. And Frydenberg was never going to challenge a sitting prime minister. Dutton and Frydenberg were immobilised, prisoners of their history and their personalities, hostage to Morrisons misplaced conviction that he could destroy Anthony Albanese as systematically as he had demolished Bill Shorten in 2019 in what he declared a miracle win. They remained locked in a deathly embrace.

Months after the election, they discovered the depths of his deception. There was a flurry of retrospective braggadocio, firing speculation that if his colleagues had known back then that he had secretly sworn himself into five additional cabinet portfolios four of them without the knowledge or consent of those who already held them the rebellion would have been ignited, he would have been deposed, and Frydenberg installed.

Maybe. If Morrison had refused to revoke his secret commissions, it is possible. More likely not. Much would have depended on how colleagues found out about them and when.

The consensus from post-trauma discussions is that cabinet ministers would have forced him to retreat and a broken party would have limped to the election, in much the same way as it eventually did.

The what-ifs are as tantalising as they are largely irrelevant. All the people who mattered, including those closest to him, already knew everything they needed to know about him, even without knowing about his clandestine acquisition of ministries. They knew he was secretive and that he lied; that he was stubborn; that he bullied people; that even if he sought advice, he seldom took it; and that he had little interest in policy.

They knew that Morrison was a deeply flawed personality, a duplicitous, damaged leader with limited horizons and appalling judgement even they were not certain they could trust, who rarely understood what Australians expected of a prime minister.

He ignored advice from almost every quarter to go to an early election, then grew paranoid that the Dutton and Frydenberg camps were plotting a coup. Even though they could see the ship heading straight for the iceberg, they did not mutiny. Instead, they waited on deck without lifejackets, without lifeboats, for their captain to ram it.

Morrison used, played, and deceived them, as he had so many others, in ways that were both obvious and beyond even their imaginings. He left them with a pile of rubble, feeling wounded and betrayed.

Those who stood up to him ran the risk of being frozen out. He was petty and vindictive. Few dared challenge him, worried that if they did they would bring the show down. That reluctance ruined them, and left the Liberal Party in its sorriest state since it was founded by Robert Menzies in 1944.

Morrisons secret takeover of ministries showed a contempt of parliament, of conventions, and of his ministers, including those he called his best friends, like Josh Frydenberg and Stuart Robert. They took it very personally.

After the revelations, his former colleagues spat out all the M words: messianic, megalomaniacal, and plain mad. Duttons shadow cabinet decided that Australians would care more about the cost of living, so muted its criticisms.

They didnt want to rake over the past. They didnt want to provoke him into forcing a by-election for his seat, which they feared they would lose, so they continued the protection racket, compounding the damage to their reputations and the partys standing.

Perversely, they accused the government of playing politics instead of focussing on more important things such as the economy. As if fundamentally undermining the proper functioning of responsible government, as the solicitor-general, Stephen Donoghue, put it, was of little consequence.

Morrisons actions were profoundly wrong on every level. They should have cut him loose immediately; instead, they showed they had learned nothing from their defeat.

There was only one senior serving Liberal who had the guts to say publicly, immediately, that he should quit parliament: Karen Andrews. She was right. He was a constant reminder of everything that had gone wrong with the Liberal Party.

After he found out that the prime minister had secretly acquired Treasury, Frydenberg, who had been loyal beyond measure to Morrison, was furious. When they eventually spoke, he said to Morrison: You wouldnt do it again if you had your time over!