Australia’s general election on Saturday was, for them, a blockbuster political trial for Scott Morrison (or ‘Sco-Mo’), the prime minister and leader of the Liberal-National Coalition. After four years in office, his government was judged by a jury of, quite literally, all its citizens in a compulsory vote. The pandemic, economic crisis, and existential challenge from China gave them a full plate of issues on which to issue their verdict.
As of this writing, it has been decisive. Overwhelmingly, the Liberal-Nationals were defeated by the socialist Anthony Albanese, whose Labor Party will assume government, possibly with a majority. Sco-Mo’s concession wraps it up. Keep the name Albanese in mind; you’ll hear it more often, now. Sco-Mo, meanwhile, is headed for the political doghouse.
It didn’t always seem this way. Sco-Mo is a conservative and, all else being equal, there was quite a bit to like about his record. He was the poster child for an American ally, who defined what it meant to be a “hardliner” on China. Even as China’s shadow looms large over Australia – as its largest trading partner with military supremacy – Sco-Mo has refused to let his country be treated like, as one Wolf Warrior Chinese diplomat put it, “gum stuck to the bottom of China’s shoe.” Besides that, one saw in Sco-Mo a Burkean conservative – who stood up to the “climate change” policy craze, cancel culture, and illegal immigration in a rather impressive fashion.
And yet, despite all this, Australia under Morrison became associated with Covid tyranny. It became a draconian police state with his “Zero Covid” strategy: Nobody could enter or exit their homes, armed cops and surveillance drones whizzed around to monitor compliance, and protests of any kind were totally banned. Small-time dissenters were arrested by police and hauled away.
In a peacetime Western democracy, these curbs were in a league of their own. Sco-Mo and Australia’s state premiers had total authority over people’s lives. Individual rights were stripped away, and fear of the state took its place. Ironically, it was comparable to China’s “Zero Covid” dragnet policy, where some have been welded shut into their homes to ‘stop the spread.’ Even as he battled China abroad, Sco-Mo and regional officials turned Australia into Shanghai at home.
Now, although he promised no more lockdowns before the election, Sco-Mo has been kicked to the curb by voters — though a host of other issues beyond Covid factored into this decision. Still, I wrote last month that his loss would be deserved. So it is, even if the lefty Albanese may not be much better.