We
may never know the full story of the night it was confirmed that
Scott
John Morrison
had come close to destroying the Liberal
Party of Australia,
but here is a sanitized version of how events unfolded…….
Weekend
Australian,
11 June 2022, p.6, excerpt:
No
Liberal strategists anticipated the Coalition’s seat total to
plunge from 76 to 58.
“I
wasn’t expecting us to win but wasn’t expecting our seat count to
be so low,” a senior campaign source said.
The
Liberal Party’s final polling in the 20 marginal seats it was
tracking nightly was accurate – just 0.8 per cent out from the
two-party-preferred result.
That
final tracking poll was 72 hours from the close of polls.
Misplaced
confidence
Undeterred,
Morrison remained “relentlessly disciplined in his confidence”
and upbeat in the final days of the campaign. At that point, there
were high hopes at senior levels of the Liberal team that the 5 per
cent of undecided voters could fall their way.
Morrison’s
confidence was also attributed to how Labor’s primary vote had
plummeted in the final weeks of the campaign, according to Crosby
Textor research. Morrison’s view was understood to be that Labor
couldn’t form majority government with a primary vote that had
crashed so low.
At
midday on election day, Finkelstein was downcast about their chance
of success, confiding to his colleagues that Anthony Albanese would
win. “He thinks the undecided started to fall the way of change on
Thursday night and last night,” a source said at the time.
Federal
Liberal campaign director Andrew Hirst was also pessimistic and was
bracing for a loss, although not as brutal as the scenario that
eventuated.
The
Prime Minister, however, dismissed Finkelstein’s dire prediction.
“Yaron is just tired, he’s exhausted after a long campaign,”
Morrison said early in the afternoon to a close confidant.
Those
close to Morrison say he was “quietly confident” that he could
win minority government; that he could pull off a miracle once again.
On
election night, Sky News host Paul Murray was reporting from the
Liberal function at the Sofitel hotel in Sydney’s CBD.
He
recalls that at the start of the night there was no sense of the
scale of the impending defeat.
“There
are times when you’re going to lose so everyone walks in going ‘how
bad is this going to be’,” he said.
But
that wasn’t the mood in the room on election night. Instead there
was an initial sense of hope.
“The
whole scenario is they weren’t supposed to win last time,” Murray
said. “They all had muscle memory of winning against the trend.
“On
election night, everyone saw Labor’s vote was down so they assumed
this was happening again. Even in the second hour when it started
going against the Libs, they were very much of the view that pre-poll
hasn’t been counted yet.
“Then
there was the final realisation that the train is not going to
arrive.” At Kirribilli House, Morrison remained hopeful and upbeat
as he bundled into his study with his closest friends, advisers and
strategists including David Gazard, Andrew Carswell,
Finkelstein, Adrian Harrington and John Kunkel. Morrison sat at his
desk, examining the raw numbers as they were coming in from the
Australian Electoral Commission.
Outside,
Jenny Morrison, ever-positive and smiling, entertained about 20 of
the couple’s friends from the Shire.
The
first hour looked to be a repeat of 2019, with early polling showing
Labor’s depressed primary vote.
Then
there was a view in the room, about 7.30 to 8pm, that there wouldn’t
be a definitive result that night.
Nail
in the coffin
But
then it changed.
“The
pre-poll voting, which we would have thought favoured us, it just
didn’t,” said one source from the room.
“When
those results started being dropped, it cemented the trend. And then
it changed really quickly.” Morrison left the room to take a long
call from Frydenberg, who a source said was “in a pretty bad way”.
During
the half-hour that he was out of the room, the size of the “teal”
problem crystallised.
Morrison
walked back in and said: “How is it looking?” “It’s not
good,” an adviser said.
“I
know it’s not good,” Morrison replied.
“It’s
got worse,” a friend replied.
Then
the Mackellar numbers started flowing in. “Jason (Falinski) is in
trouble,” Morrison said.
A
source in the room said that “when Jason’s results became clear,
that’s when hope was abandoned”.
Finkelstein
was the one who called it, according to those present. “We will be
conceding tonight,” he said….
Morrison may have resigned as leader of the federal parliamentary Liberal Party, but this is not necessarily a signal that he will not fight to keep a degree of influence within the party in the hope of rebuilding his power base.
Currently he appears to be putting forward ideas on how to rebuild the Coalition and rebrand the Liberal Party:
In
the wake of the election, Morrison has expressed an idea to some of
his confidants about a possible strategy to deal with the
independents in future elections: establish the Liberal National
Party brand Australia-wide as the main conservative political
movement.
Instead
of the Nationals being the Coalition partner, he has suggested
setting up a new progressive Liberal movement as the Coalition
partner. It could run a different brand in the inner-city seats.
He has also begun accepting invitations to events where his former leadership status is recognised and where he can begin post-election networking.