Prime Minister Scott Morrison here. How good are me and my team? Here are just a few of my accomplishments during my first term (ticks all the boxes for leadership — as I know it):
Corruption? What corruption?
- Snuck the phrase “ritual abuse” into my ‘National Apology to Victims of Survivors and Child Sexual Abuse’. It was allegedly at the request of my mate and QAnon's Australia leader, Tim Stewart and against the advice of the survivors of child sex abuse and a panel of government-appointed experts.
- Used the Community Sport Infrastructure Grant Program to misappropriate $102.5 million towards 684 projects favouring Liberal electorates in the lead-up to the 2019 Federal Election.
- Disregarded the findings of the Auditor General’s Report (as the only genuinely independent investigation) into the “sports rorts” affair — otherwise known as the “McKenzie Scandal”.
- Refused to release the Gaetjens report (an “internal” investigation), which I claimed “exonerated” my people.
- Applied our own “unique” criteria for selecting which electorates receive commuter car parks using the $660 million Urban Congestion Fund before the 2019 Election (sound familiar?).
- We did such a good job that none of the 47 commuter car park sites selected by the Government before the 2019 Election were picked by the infrastructure department. It’s just a coincidence that 27 of those car parks were approved the day of the announcement.
- Despite the Auditor General’s request (after they determined the approvals were not effective or merit-based), I’ve decided to decline to detail my office’s involvement in the fund. Don't you worry about that!
- Purchased a 12.26-hectare triangle of land for just under $30 million (an area known as the “Leppington Triangle” adjacent to the site for the Western Sydney Airport) despite the department of infrastructure valuing the land purchase at just $3 million. I didn’t know the Leppington Pastoral Company is operated by billionaire brothers Tony and Ron Perich and the company donated close to $177,000 to the Liberals since 2002, including $59,000 in 2018-19 — honestly I didn’t have a clue!
Abandonment issues
- Manipulated the “Robodebt” scheme to create an unlawful and incorrect Centrelink debt collection system which resulted in my Government having to repay over 470,000 debts at a cost of just over $721 million — but not after countless lives had been ruined in the process, resulting in multiple suicides.
- Asked the Trump Administration to invite my best mate Brian Houston to a state dinner at the White House to spruik his Hillsong Church and for six months, I refused to answer any questions around the invitation and derided the story as “gossip” before finally admitting it was true. It didn’t seem to matter that Brian was found by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to have failed to alert the police to allegations that his father had sexually assaulted children.
- Took a family trip to Hawaii during the worst fires my nation had ever experienced and advised the Opposition Leader that I was on leave with my family — but did not disclose I was leaving the country during the raging fires. Indeed, Instructed my office not to divulge to the media (and the nation) that I was even overseas.
- Watched the fires poolside while having a cold beer. Then, when I was forced to cut my Hawaii holiday short and return home, coined the phrase “I don’t hold a hose, mate” to lift the spirits of everyone affected by the fires, since over 3,500 homes were destroyed and 34 lives lost – including six firefighters – all of whom apparently were not above holding a hose.
- Fed up with sitting on my backside and being useless, I demonstrated leadership by deploying the Australian Defence Forces to intervene and respond to the bushfire crisis — without the consultation of any of the relevant authorities, including the Rural Fire Services. To give them a welcome surprise, I kept it secret from the same authorities until I announced it to the press. Sure, it made a great political advertisement, too — just like my Tourism Australia gig.
In touch with my feminine side
- Bullied our first female CEO of Australia Post into resigning without investigating the facts of the matter and then refused to apologise for my treatment of her. As a father of two girls (when I’m reminded by my wife, Jenny), I hope I’ve set an example for them to reach for that glass ceiling — and to forget about the stars.
- Denied knowing about the Brittany Higgins rape allegations before they were aired in the media, yet I advised the media that I offered to meet with her when she resigned as a staffer. Then we “backgrounded” her and her partner in the hope of creating a “dirt file”.
- I concluded that rape is bad after Jenny reminded me that I have two daughters. Jenny also introduced me to use the word “empathy” and I’m currently working on its meaning.
- I announced an independent investigation to determine when my office was aware of the allegations, only to halt it — not once, but twice.
- Inspired the women of Australia by advising the participants of the women’s March4Justice they should be grateful to be able to march peacefully without being “met with bullets”.
- Feeling the heat after all the sexual harassment in Canberra reports, I announced that we were adopting all 55 of the recommendations of Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins' Respect@Work report — which we had been sitting on for 18 months. We rushed it through legislation in September and implemented only six of those recommendations. We might get around to some of the other changes at some point, I’m just not sure when — I've got other stuff on my plate.
- Backed my Attorney General, Christian Porter, when it was revealed there were allegations he raped a woman. Despite all the pressure, I refused to sack him. In fact, I declared him innocent.
- In an unprecedented move, we rejected the Speaker’s advice that there was a prima facie case for my ex-Attorney General (yep, same bloke, Christian Porter). He admitted he used a blind trust with funds from unknown sources to pay his legal fees, but we managed to block the bid to refer the matter to the privileges committee.
- Accomplished all of the above at a time when our Australian of the Year – a child sexual abuse survivor and rape victim – is trying to raise awareness and give a voice to women and children who have been sexually abused. It’s great to be “supporting” her work and following her example — I reckon she’d be really proud of me.
- Had my Minister, Angus Taylor, declare himself exonerated by a police investigation into the false document distributed by his office (defaming Clover Moore), despite never having explained where it came from and the police never asking him.
How good was our pandemic response?
- Encouraged the nation to carry on with business as usual and join me in going to the footy (despite COVID concerns), only to be thwarted by the state premiers who demonstrated real leadership by implementing lockdowns to achieve zero COVID-19 cases nationally — making Australia the envy of the world and leaving me with a golden opportunity to try and take the credit.
- Introduced the JobKeeper scheme and omitted a clawback provision to help my big business mates and political donors make huge profits, removing all transparency mechanisms that were introduced for similar JobKeeper schemes in the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
- Refused to list all businesses earning above $10 million that received the handout and the amount they were given. Many of those businesses are run by my mates!
- Advised the nation we were first in the queue for the COVID-19 vaccine, when in fact we weren’t even in the queue.
- Told the country that the national vaccination program was “not a race” when the evidence was clearly telling us it really should have been a sprint.
- Snatched defeat from the jaws of victory at a time when Australia had one of the lowest COVID-19 case numbers in the world, by missing the opportunity to safeguard Australia with purpose-built quarantine facilities and stuffing up the vaccination rollout big time to make us the lowest vaccinated nation in the OECD.
- Fed up with sitting on my backside and being useless, I introduced Operation COVID Shield and brought in the military to manage the COVID-19 vaccination program. True to form, my default response when it all hits the fan is to send in the cavalry. Hell, it worked for the fires, and the name “Operation COVID Shield” was a great distraction from my disaster of a vaccine rollout. (I would have used “Operation Warp Speed” if Trump hadn’t got in there first.) Remember, with my background in marketing, I always know a great opportunity for a PR exercise when I see one.
- Pushed the “We’re all in this together” line during the lockdown when I exploited an exemption for essential workers to visit my family on Father’s Day — flying between Sydney and Canberra while many families were prevented from being with their loved ones.
- Posted an image of an event from back in February so as not to reveal my whereabouts to the media — just like I did on my trip to Hawaii.
Giving Australians a fair go
- Exploited the anti-vaccination movement and excused the behaviour of violent extremists so I could win the popularity contest and try to claw my way back in the polls.
- Pulled a prank on the French Prime Minister by pretending we were going to buy their submarines for $90 billion. When President Macron showed he couldn’t take a joke and called me a liar, I altered his message to sound like he was referring to all Australians so I could arouse some patriotism and win some “likes”. I just thought a little dose of the Cronulla Riots sentiment against the French would calm things down.
- Refused to attend a COP26 event because I knew that my position on climate change and being pro-coal and gas would attract international criticism and expose me to be alone in my views.
- Although I was dragged to the COP26 in Glasgow, I let my actions do all the talking by blocking global collaboration on climate action; promoting the extension and expansion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas; refusing to step up and set ambitious climate goals; ensuring that Australia finishes dead-last on climate out of all the nations that attended; and cementing our global reputation as a climate action blocker.
- Saved the Australian people back in 2019 from ruining their weekends for an electric car. They can’t tow a boat, can’t tow a trailer, they can’t even float. Well, fast-forward two years and my opinion of them’s changed a little. Hang on… wait a sec… sorry, my opinion hasn’t changed. What I meant was I was always for the electric car, I just didn’t think it was right to mandate them. Hang on, if the Opposition is claiming that its policy did not feature a mandate on the electric car, then that’s a lie. I’m telling the truth… it’s a lie. No, I’m telling the truth that they lied, not me. No, I don’t have any evidence that they wanted to mandate them, but it’s the truth about them lying. They always lie — especially when I do a U-turn on any of my policies.
- While on the topic of lies, when I was asked on radio if I have ever told a lie in public life, I answered it as truthfully as I could — with my fingers crossed behind my back. I said, “I don’t believe I have”. Now, if you ignore the French President’s opinion, the electric car policy, the vaccination rollout, the Brittany Higgins matter, the Taiwan “one country, two systems” statement, the “Shanghai Sam” tweet and everything else abovementioned, it’s all just a misunderstanding on the Australian people’s behalf. I’m an honest bloke. Truly!
- Delivered an awesome Christmas message to the Australian people. I told them to stare the Omicron virus down and gave them a taste of anarchy when I announced the Government should not interfere in their lives during the festive season.
- Yep, I left all the responsibility to the individual, like
- getting access to a PCR test when the queues stretched for kilometres;
- locating an affordable RAT test because we hadn’t thought to buy enough supplies from our own local manufacturers;
- scrambling to get a booster shot to before getting infected with Omicron;
- finding food and groceries in empty supermarkets — you name it!
- I give thanks to friends like Gerry Harvey and our other oligarchs for retailing the RATs and naming their price in the true spirit of my “can-do capitalism” philosophy. What an awesome Christmas!
- And just to rub salt and horseradish into the wounds of all those struggling out there, I thought I’d post some images of me on New Year’s eve making barbeque barramundi and Kerala fish curry — how good is that?
- Yep, I left all the responsibility to the individual, like
- Announced in mid-October 2021 that we “secured” the breakthrough COVID treatment drug Paxlovid, which was technically correct. This drug has been used with enormous success and saved countless lives in the U.S., Israel and other nations since the beginning of January. We’re not sure when it will be arriving on our shores, but we’ll keep you distracted with national security matters until it arrives.
- I’m extremely proud of Josh’s brilliant idea to get children to drive forklifts. Giving kids jobs over the summer and an opportunity to appreciate the value of money, while returning the favour to all our L-NP donors with cheap labour — it’s a win-win. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better for them than JobKeeper!
- When things really started to boil during our “living with COVID” season, we turned our attention to more important matters and addressed our greatest threat to our national security — Novak Djokovic. Yes, on the advice of my office (staffed by those Crosby Textor boys) and with a little help from the Murdoch press, we managed to distract the entire nation from all their woes and forget about the pandemic for an entire week. Now that’s what I call “dead-catting”!
- Showing my softer side, I delivered an apology to parliamentary staff abuse victims. Sure, I couldn’t allow myself to be upstaged after learning that the Leader of the Opposition was going to deliver one personally, but at least I did it.
- Oh, and someone (can’t remember who) was kind enough to remind me the afternoon before that it might be better for some staff who were allegedly abused to actually be present in Parliament when the apology was delivered. No need to harp on the Jenkins Report — a simple “sorry” should do the job.
Taking care of bills
- As the first Pentecostal Prime Minister, I sought to introduce the Religious Discrimination Bill to save our youth from being converted into gays, lesbians, trans-genders and whatever else is out there. Plus, having the ability to threaten these students with expulsion might make them change their minds and stay happy — conversion therapy works, you know.
- Following on from the success of our sports rorts and car park rorts affair, we’ve gone bigger and better to set aside a whopping $16.1 billion dollars in unannounced measures. We titled this pot of gold as “decisions taken but not yet announced”. The journalists label it an L-NP “war chest” for pork-barrelling, but I just see it as setting some cash aside for the opportunistic timing of announcements. Yep, cheating is in my DNA.
- Fed up with sitting on my backside and being useless (again), I launched Operation Aged Care Assist and brought in the military to manage the mess I created in aged care by appointing Richard “Dick” Colbeck in charge. Once again, when it all hits the fan, just send in the cavalry. It was great PR during the fires and the vaccine rollout.
- It’ll also take the heat off Josh for reducing the funding to Aged Care — if it wasn’t for the pandemic, nobody would have known about it.
- Proposed a Social Media (anti-trolling) Bill in Parliament, under the guise of protecting ordinary Australians from hateful, prejudiced, discriminatory and offensive material on social media platforms. Okay, when I said “ordinary Australians”, what I meant was just your ordinary Federal L-NP parliamentarian. As I’ve said before, I’ve got broad shoulders and I can take a sledging, but I wanna be able to sue everyone that hurts my feelings — especially when it’s on Twitter and Facebook. Sure, the bill won’t stop online bullying, but it’ll make anyone think twice about criticising the Government.
- Made a heartfelt apology to the Stolen Generations and told the victims and their families that “sorry” is not as hard to say as “I forgive you” (‘cause I know, I’ve experienced similar trauma). I’m pretty sure the German Government told all the people of the Jewish faith to forgive them and move on — so what’s their problem?
- Ensured the safety of all Australians by putting China in its place and preparing the nation for war. Using the Donald Trump playbook (and co-authored by Crosby Textor), it’s an awesome political point-scoring opportunity. First, I attack the Opposition on national security and immigration. Then, I attack all the intel chiefs that don’t play along with me (ASIO, AFP, ASIS, NIC and DIO). Without creating fear around national security and war-mongering, we don’t stand a chance against the Opposition.
- Set some incredible records for our economy. We now carry the largest gross government debt in our history at $915 billion, with Australian households the second most indebted in the world — only behind Switzerland. None of our electorates really understand micro and macroeconomics, so I’ll just keep plugging the myth that the L-NP are historically better economic managers of the nation.
- Did more photo opportunities and performed more cosplay than all other prime ministers and state premiers combined. Yeah, it’s so much fun being the PM — I get to do the hairdressing thing and the welding thing. I almost lost my vision doing that one. Look, I know, if I put as much effort into governing as I did marketing, then I wouldn’t need marketing to pretend I’m governing. But I still can’t believe I got the PM gig, so what am I gonna show all my Hillsong and QAnon mates that I at least did something on the job, if I haven’t got the bloody pictures?
- Opposed the establishment of a genuinely independent federal anti-corruption watchdog, despite promising it before the last Election. Hell, can you imagine me and my team getting away with any of the abovementioned stuff if we had one? Strewth!
But wait — there’s more work for me to do, Australia. So I’m really looking forward to another term of doing what I do best — kicking footballs, eating meat pies, cheering and cavorting at footy matches wearing my Sharkies scarf, donning my helmet and high-vis gear, driving trucks, giving the two-thumbs-up — and anything else that strategically markets me as just your ordinary bloke.
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Moral Compass’ is true north — neither left nor right-leaning. If we focus on restoring integrity, transparency and accountability to government, the rest will fall into place.
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