Friday 26 November 2021

Has Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison lost the confidence of his parliamentary party and its coalition partner?



Since late October 2021 the issue of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's leadership, personal integrity and the quality of his decision making has quickly moved past the rumour mongering, onto the international stage and into both Houses of the Australian Parliament. 


The voting public were also beginning to show their disapproval.


The Conversation, 15 November 2021:


52% (up two) were dissatisfied with Scott Morrison’s performance, and 44% (down two) were satisfied, for a net approval of -8, down four points. This continues Morrison’s slump from his pandemic highs. Six months ago, Morrison’s net approval in Newspoll was +20, and last November his net approval was +36.


Members of his own backbench have gone from muttering their discontent from behind closed doors, to actively backgrounding against him and, onto openly defying him inside and outside of the Parliament. 


7am Podcast, 19 November 2021: 


The federal Coalition government holds office by the barest of margins - just one seat. Now, a popular and high profile Liberal incumbent has announced he won’t be recontesting his electorate, throwing the party’s election preparations into jeopardy. Today, Paul Bongiorno on why the Liberal MP abandoning Scott Morrison thinks Anthony Albanese might be a better Prime Minister for the country. 


John Alexander Liberal MP for Bennelong had recently announced he is not standing at the 2022 federal election. He is understood to be tired of partisan politics where winning is everything but good policy in the national interest runs a poor last. Unnamed parliamentary colleagues are saying that privately Alexander is scathing of the leadership of the government of Scott Morrison, Josh Frydenberg and Barnaby Joyce, believing they put the government’s self-interest above everything. 


Full audio here.


On 21 November 2021 @KafkaVoltaire released this summary of a 'backgrounding' he received from two sitting LNP MPs:










On 22 November, the first day sitting day of the short period before Parliament goes into recess until 2022 saw the Prime Minister publicly caught out knowingly misleading the House and, in the Senate members of his government were openly threatening him with political mayhem when five Coalition senators crossed the floor to vote for a bill banning mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations. 

By 23 November the news cycle was beginning to put his feet to the fire....


There is now speculation that Scott Morrison might be forced to change his preferred election date to March 2022 in order to block fellow Liberal and Minister for Defence Peter Dutton's ambitions to become prime minister.

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