ScoMoism plonks itself right in Labor’s heartland

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As Labor tortures itself over which direction to take post-election failure, ScoMo knows exactly he is going, absolutely nowhere, via the AFR:

Scott Morrison has stamped his authority on the government with a ministerial reshuffle that remarries climate change and energy, rewards his backers, and places a premium on stability by leaving key positions unchanged.

The Prime Minister has also made a big statement that he intends to fix the National Disability Insurance Scheme by removing it from under the welfare umbrella and making it a separate Cabinet ministry.

Less than a year after he separated climate change and energy to appease the conservatives who used the National Energy Guarantee to move against Malcolm Turnbull, Mr Morrison added Emissions Reduction to the responsibilities of Energy Minister Angus Taylor.

With Tony Abbott gone as well, the energy conservatives have lost their key lightening rod. ScoMo now has Malcolm Turnbull’s slow moving centrist approach to energy reform to prosecute as salable national interest climate agenda.

And there’s more, via Domain:

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison has “committed to getting an outcome” on constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, paving the way for a national discussion on the best way to achieve it.

But he has given no timeframe on how long the process might take.

The freshly elected Mr Morrison told the Herald that “we need to work together across the aisle and across our communities to get an outcome that all Australians can get behind and we’ll take as long as is needed to achieve that.”

Take that, Labor sacred cow.

Via The Australian comes an assessment of the shift:

A fundamental shift in the power balance of the Liberal Party is under way.

…Morrison has promoted women and sent a message that hard work will be rewarded. Those who fought to keep their seats have been promoted. Those who did less have not.

Critically, the new Morrison cabinet is a fundamental rebalancing that better reflects the party’s new heartland.

Morrison may have delivered government but his ascendancy has also rewritten the Liberal Party’s charter and signalled a new era that has transferred power from the party’s inner city elite to the outer suburbs and the regions.

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The conservatives and the liberals are both gone. What’s in their place is ScoMo’s suburban hoard, relaxed and comfortable:

  • more conservative on immigration than Labor;
  • more socially conservative that Turnbull but much less so that Abbott;
  • strong on boats with early signs of a strong China position in the Pacific to support ANZUS;
  • compassionate on NDIS;
  • tax cuts for enterprise and lifters over leaners;
  • rising house prices (but not likely to be crazy) with FHB support.

There’s still going to be a lot of difficulty with falling living standards as wages deflate, energy prices don’t improve and crush-loading worsens but in a two horse race, Labor is now starting a very long way behind.

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ScoMoism knows what it is doing.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.