Things have calmed down for the Morrison Government in the past few days as the media cycle turned to the terrible trials of filthy rich and famous Princess Meghan Markle. But, the sexual assault issue is not going away. The sympathetic Minter Ellison CEO has marched, completely unrelated to the reported $93m in Morrison Government contracts held by the firm. A lot of commentators are still pounding away. The protests are still coming next week.
Today, the pick of the coverage comes from Liberal stalwart Nikki Savva at The Australian:
- Morrison must sack Reynolds and Porter to save himself.
- Their careers are wrecked anyway.
- The Government will get no clear for any other policy air until it does.
- To think otherwise is “delusional”.
- The Government only has a tiny majority and the issue will kill it in the leafy electorates.
All sounds pretty sound to me. In the end, it is this political calculus that will win out as polling gives it the nudge. Which makes you wonder why Morrison has gone so hard on “rule of law” defence etc. Because now he will have to break it to save himself, only underlining his total lack of values.
To my mind, the Morrison goose is cooked, sacked ministers or not. You can’t violently alienate half the electorate and expect to win.
My advice is, therefore, to get set for a Labor Government which, under Albo, won’t change much but will lead to:
- somewhat higher wage growth as temporary worker visas are cut;
- the possibility of weaker house price growth (could Labor do what Ardern has done with RBNZ?);
- further Chinese corruption.
