In at least one sense, Scott Morrison is the most successful Australian prime minister in years. He is the first person since 2007 to survive in office from one election to the next. That year, the government of Australia’s second longest-serving prime minister, John Howard, was ousted after nearly 12 years of rule.
Between Howard and Morrison, there have been four prime ministers, including Kevin Rudd, who served twice during an extraordinary period of political instability in Australia.
Rudd’s second term ended when voters ousted his centre-left Australian Labor Party government in the 2013 election. The other three prime ministers were toppled by their own parties, which had panicked amid poor opinion polls. Similarly, Rudd installed the revolving door spinning the prime minister’s office during his first term.
Morrison’s relative longevity can be explained by his conservative Liberal Party tightening rules that enable him to activate his leader’s ousted seat.
But most credit his existence to his full three-year term, with Morrison having given his coalition a narrow victory at the last election in 2019 when Labor were favored to win. Some betting agencies were so confident of Labor’s victory that they paid party supporters before polling day.
Morrison announced on Sunday that the next election would be held on May 21. This is the latest date available for them.
Morrison’s coalition is once again behind in most opinion polls. But the credibility of the election has not recovered from the shock of the 2019 result and Morrison is now recognized as a skilled campaigner who does not surrender.
The 53-year-old former tourism marketer was labeled an “accidental prime minister” in 2018 when his government colleagues selected him to replace then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.
It was yet another coup of a prime minister without the electorate involved, in a process not fully explained that Australians increasingly despise. Polls suggested Morrison would have one of the shortest tenures of any Australian prime minister, with elections only months away.
His critics argue that his success has been a triumph of style over substance.
The satirical website Betuta Advocate labeled him “scooty from marketing” when he first came to power, and the description has since gained popularity.
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has been nicknamed Albo since he was a child, in keeping with a time-honored Australian tradition of abbreviating and often adding an “o” to the end.
Similarly, Morrison is widely known as ScoMo. But there is speculation as to how organic this nickname is.
When he added “Scomo” to his Facebook account name in 2017 as treasurer, Morrison said, “That’s what I’m tagged in, so I can embrace it.”
The Morrisons sell themselves as a simple Australian family man, passionate about their Sydney Pentecostal church and their local national rugby league football team, the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks.
His personality has been described as that of “daggy dad”, an affectionate Australian term for an unmotivated father who can be amusing but also a source of embarrassment to teenage children.
During a family profile for Australia’s nationally broadcast “60 Minutes” current affairs program in February, he sang an amateur rendition of the 1970s rock song “April Sun in Cuba” while playing a guitar.
He is the son of police officer and one-time mayor John Morrison and is a descendant of British criminal William Roberts, who arrived in Australia in 1788 with the first fleet of 11 ships, establishing the penal colony that would become Sydney.
He promoted tourism for the Australian and New Zealand governments before entering politics.
He is seen by some as an inconsistent mix of a committed Christian who made a name for himself through a refugee policy that has been condemned by many church groups as inhuman.
Morrison rose to public prominence when the conservative coalition government was first elected as minister in 2013 under Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who barred asylum seekers from attempting to reach Australian shores by boat.
Australia used the Navy to bring boats back to Indonesia, or it drove refugees to remote immigration camps in the impoverished Pacific island nations of Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
The policy has been widely condemned as a drastic repeal of Australia’s international obligations to help refugees. Australia’s human rights watchdog found in 2014 that Morrison had failed to act in the best interests of detained asylum seekers.
Morrison explained the righteousness of crushing the people-smuggling trade and his deep belief in preserving the safety of those who boarded the dilapidated boats to make the long and treacherous journey to Australia.
Boats have stopped arriving and the government has recently stepped in to neutralize the plight of refugees still on the islands by accepting New Zealand’s offer to resettle 150 a year.
Morrison is proud of the refugee policy. He has a trophy in the shape of the silhouette of a people-smuggler’s boat, which reads: “I stopped them.”
Morrison’s foe within his conservative Liberal Party, Sen. Concetta Fieravanti-Wells, said the prime minister’s confidence was a marketing ploy.
He described Morrison as the most cruel person he had met in his public life.
“He specializes in running with foxes and hunting with hounds, lacking a moral compass and no conscience,” Fieravanti-Wells said in his final speech to the Senate in March.
“His actions are contrary to his portrayal as a believer. He has used his so-called faith as a marketing advantage,” she said.
Morrison mentioned the impact of Christianity on his politics during his first speech in Parliament in 2008.
“So what values do I derive from my faith?” Morrison asked.
“My answer comes from Jeremiah, chapter 9:24: I am the Lord who does the works of compassion, justice and righteousness on earth; For I am pleased with these things, says the Lord,” he said.