Morrison's Mission: A Lowy Institute Paper: Penguin Special

by Paul Kelly

When he became Prime Minister in 2018, Scott Morrison was a foreign policy amateur confronted by unprecedented an assertive Beijing and a looming rivalry between the two biggest economies in world history, the United States and China. Morrison plunged into foreign and security policy by making highly contentious changes that will be felt for decades, not least the historic decision to build nuclear-powered submarines.Featuring interviews with Morrison and members of his cabinet, this book tells the story of the Prime Minister's foreign policy convictions and calculations, and what drove his attitudes towards China, America and the Indo-Pacific.

Genres: Politics

Paperback

About the author

Australian political journalist who is currently editor-at-large at The Australian and was previously its editor-in-chief. He has written numerous books on Australian politics and political history.

Reviews

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kelly, writing for the allegedly right-wing Lowy Institute, focuses only on Morrison’s foreign policy. Inevitably it is a bit of a hagiography; it has to be to make Morrison’s least effective sphere of influence seem positive. We see this from the start. Kelly goes back to his great x 5 grandparents arriving in the First Fleet. That’s how Australian he is. Despite that he invented Scomo in 2018 for electoral purposes, which slants his Australianness in a way more likely to appeal to his target tradies. Morrison, however, was born into a middle class family, went to an elite selective school and played rugby union. Come election time, that background wouldn’t win over the tradies, so Scomo was born, baseball cap and all, the pie-eating Sharks supporter, which is rugby league, not union. To prove his connection with tradies, photo ops saw him driving trucks, hammering nails, washing women’s hair, and lifting his welder’s mask so he could get a face full of nasty sparks. Insulting when you think about it: these men doing skilled jobs have this Michael Portillo-ish character push in and do clumsily in seconds what they spend their lifetimes doing with great skill.
Kelly then emphasizes what a deeply devoted Christian Morrison is, quoting his swearing-in to Parliament speech, confessing his faith and his determination to act with loving kindness. But Kelly doesn’t add that Morrison didn’t live up to his Christian values. His policies on refugees and “on water matters”, his invention of the Centrelink outrage, whereby thousands of impoverished people were charged with nonexistent debts and forced to pay back money they didn’t have. Not your usual acts of loving kindness and Christian charity. Morrison frequently refers to Australia being one of the strongest social democracies, even more so than America. He may talk democracy at a macro level, but on a micro level Morrison is no democrat: he is an authoritarian bully (just ask some of his colleagues) as for instance in stacking 12 seats in NSW with his favourites for the 2022 election rather than allowing the normal process of local preselection. On foreign policy Morrison is quoted several times saying the world has now changed but instead of addressing the new world order his policies recall postwar dynamics, scuttling back to Britain and the US – and the US gets a very lucrative submarine deal that over-rides an existing deal we had with the French who could equally and more cheaply have provided us with nuclear subs (if we really must have them). We should rather come to terms with the Pacific region, in which China is supremely important. Morrison forces a choice between US and China and he chooses the US thereby setting us up as against China. AUKUS and nuclear submarines are part of this rebalancing. Kelly quotes diplomat Alan Gyngell who said of Morrison “he has strong convictions about China but doesn’t have a conceptual view of foreign policy.” Which possibly brings us back to his Pentecostalism. Having strong convictions means that he knows he is right, including in foreign policy, he doesn’t need to think through analytically what he is to do about it except fulminate. So of course China fulminates back and we lose much lucrative trade. All credit to Kelly for a detailed analysis, but it is one sided, painting a pictures of Morrison’s Mission (an appropriate choice of word here) that doesn’t quite gel with the picture we see of an aggressive man of convictions who can rub the leaders of other countries the wrong way.

[Fraizer · Rating 4 out of 5]

china china china

[Sam Reeve · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 Stars.

Really comprehensive but quick read. I would've been more inclined to rate it higher but it seemed a bit too in favour of Mr. Morrison and his success. There is a lot to be critical of him. However, Kelly penetrates the heart of the PM's foreign policy and how his fundamental convictions shape how he treats the global security order.

Through all the turbulence and political pressure of his tenure, this text outlines very persuasively what drove his decisions and how they were effective / ineffective.

Doesn't include the Russia/Ukraine Invasion for obvious reasons, but applying Kelly's model and argument of Morrison to this crisis allows great insight to how he frames his foreign policy. It's a good forecast of future events.

[Loretta · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insightful look into the motivation and rationale behind Scott Morrison’s foreign policy and what he hA achieved in 3 years of office. Compelling reading reading without bias or propaganda driven by political parties or media hype.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good review of Scott Morrison's foreign policy record. The author is biased in favour of Morrison which spoils the book a little but there have been plenty of books written that are critical of Morrison. As always, it pays to read more than one book about a person to really understand them.

[Glenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is very much a pre-election puff piece, however it is a well written pre-election puff piece.