OPINION: Scott Morrison was Australia’s 30th Prime Minister, which at the time was also where he ranked amongst his fellow office-holders on a scale of quality. In the 2022 Australian Federal Election he lost this role and moved to the backbench, but now on Tuesday January 23 news broke that he would be resigning from politics, leaving a legacy of fire and brimstone behind him.
News of Morrison’s plan to resign is hardly a surprise. The man has been textbook “quiet-quitting” ever since his government got booted out. And yet he has stayed on for whatever reason until now. May God have pity on whatever poor soul just accepted his résumé.
But it’s not just his future employers who’ll need to call on divine pity — it’s Morrison too who needs to seek atonement.
A false prophet who feared Hell and wrote off those he deemed sinful. A hypocrite to his very core, Morrison is guilty of every single crime he ever accused everyone else of doing.
So, as we farewell “Scotty From Marketing” from politics, let’s count the seven Deadly Sins that he will be forced to spend eternity paying for, from his time as Prime Minister.
Lust
Lust as a sin that needs no explanation. However, nothing makes me queasy like imagining Scott Morrison doing the deed.
I just vomited, you just clawed your eyes out. We’re not having THAT discussion (ever). But what I will accuse Morrison of is objectification.
Biblically the sin of lust stems from the objectification of another person. It can be as simple as seeing someone only though the lens of sex, rather than as a human. And nobody had their sex utilised by Morrison more than his own family — Jen and the girls.
Whenever any discussion of female issues came up and Morrison was unsure how to empathise with the female victims, he fell back on “Jen and the girls” to explain it to him. Whenever he was accused of sexism in the workplace, or when sexual assault cases were brought to him in Parliament, “Jen and the girls” was sure to be brought up.
We don’t know what their home life was like, but let’s empathise with Jenny Morrison here. She was not a politician, she was just the wife of one, and children are regular kids. Yet they had their lives thrown into the public eye by a man every time he needed a scape goat to avoid being called a misogynist.
In his lust for approval, Morrison blatantly objectified and used the women closest to him, as just another means to win over the public.
Gluttony
Gluttony, the sin of overindulgence, is probably one of the easiest to identify in Morrison.
Remember that time in 2022 when it was revealed that he had secretly assigned himself to five different ministries? If that’s not textbook gluttony then I don’t know what is.
With the help of the Governor General, Morrison became a one-man-cabinet, and took control over the following government portfolios without even his own ministers knowing it, let alone the general public.
- Health.
- Finance.
- Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.
- Home Affairs.
- and Treasury.
Honestly we shouldn’t be letting him leave until he’s written five more resignation letters as far as I’m concerned.
Greed
In Dante’s 14th century epic poem, Inferno, he represented the sin of greed through the excessive hoarding and misuse of money.
Now we can talk about Scott Morrison’s unusual spending of taxpayer dollars until the rapture begins. Whether it’s the mess that was JobKeeper, his signing of the AUKUS submarine agreement, or the rorts he used to spend millions trying to win over marginal seats.
However the worst of Morrison’s greediness was Robodebt.
While Treasurer he set up and executed the scheme that unlawfully requested massive amounts of debt from people on welfare payments by incorrectly calculating how much they earned and charging them through the roof in repayments. It also forced its victims to prove that they didn’t owe anything.
With his totally un-nuanced perspective, Morrison saw anyone on welfare as wrong, and held in his opinion that these people living on minuscule amounts of money were cheating the system.
So his ministry created the Robodebt system which demanded that they repay money they “took” from the taxpayer. All the while Morrison gave more and more tax-cuts to big business, and gave politicians their fair share of pay increases too.
Greedy Scotty, oink oink.
Sloth
Sloth, the sin of laziness, may as well be the top skill on Morrison’s résumé.
Remember all those iconic Morrison catchphrases we heard over the years? Let’s reminisce on them now.
- “I don’t hold a hose mate.”
- “It’s not a race.”
- “I don’t comment on on-water matters.”
- “I’m not going to answer that question.”
- “That’s not my job.”
I think no sentence sums up Morrison’s time as PM better than “that’s not my job.”
And of course he’s announced his resignation just before parliament resumes for 2024.
Legit, he’s just been paid for a few months to do even more nothing than usual, and has now waited strategically until before coming back from the holidays to resign. It’s the equivalent of a teacher who waits until after the summer school holidays to announce they quit.
Either Scott Morrison was out of his depth as Prime Minister and truly had no understanding of the requirements of his position, OR he knew and just couldn’t be arsed anyway.
Please let us know what it was Scott, if you can be bothered to answer that question.
Wrath
Described by his own colleagues as “a bully” and a “horrible, horrible person” the wrath of Morrison fell on whoever dared cross him.
Yet it is in the culture wars where we see Morrison’s wrath most. His hatred for those that he was in opposition with meant that he would happily throw logic out the window if it meant scoring a point against them.
His idealogical adversaries were the victim of his holy anger — just think about the hate that trans-folk were submitted to when Morrison backed Katherine Deves‘ culture war against them during the 2022 election.
Envy
Morrison, like any other career politician, suffered from the fatal envy of seeking approval. Wanting something that isn’t theirs, and changing themselves for it.
The thing about envy is that it is an awkward feeling to watch someone else have. And that is exactly what it was like to watch Morrison for four years undergo a reputation rehab in his quest to be popular.
Whether it was the shameless photo ops we’d see of him doing costumed tours working class jobs, or the “relatable dad” character he tried to cultivate by cooking abysmal curries, or even just creating the nickname “ScoMo” for himself, the only thing apparent about Morrison’s character was his need for approval.
His first taste of unpopularity occurred after his ill-fated trip to Hawaii during the 2020 Black Summer Bushfires, and he didn’t like it at all. After a national scandal he cut short his holiday and flew immediately to the victims of the fires.
But he didn’t just go and try and make things better for the victims. He also brought a camera crew to capture him being a doing this, envying the approval rating of a more popular PM.
Morrison dawdled around towns where he was unwanted, and in his craving for approval he shook the hands of those who didn’t want to touch him with a 10,000 ft pole.
Obviously though, this envy could never be satiated. Both because no envy is truly satisfiable, and because there was nothing Scott Morrison could ever do to save his reputation in the end.
Pride
Pride is often described as the original of the sins. Pride is delusion, and causes one’s worldview to become discordant with reality. At it’s most simple, it is thinking higher of yourself than you should. And its polar opposite is humility.
Scott Morrison believed that he was different to other prime ministers. He believed earnestly that it was God’s ineffable plan for him to be the leader of Australia. So every action that Morrison did, he believed was the will of God.
And when righteousness is on your side, whoever opposes you is the devil.
This is not hyperbolising Morrison either. This is his own account of what he believed, sharing a testimony in 2021 to a church of how he believed he was called by God to “not grow weary” in how he led the nation.
This caused chaos in Morrison’s leadership of the nation, because it meant that in his mind he was incapable of doing wrong.
What Morrison failed to realise is that in his pride of never questioning himself, he made himself a deity.
All I have left to Scott is goodbye and “how good” riddance.
