Niki Savva

Scribe 2022  RRP $35.00

It is difficult to think of anyone better qualified than Niki Savva to write a detailed analysis of the reasons for the defeat of the Morrison government in 2022. 

Many will know her from her regular appearances on ABC’s Insiders program where she always provides well informed comment on the political issues of the day. She is one of the Canberra Press Gallery’s most senior correspondents, but more importantly she spent many years working on the inside for both Peter Costello and John Howard. But she is no apologist for the Liberal Party and has always been prepared to speak openly, honestly, and fairly about the issues as she sees them.

This book is a damning critique of the personality failings and weaknesses of Scott Morrison and the way that those failings ultimately contributed to the defeat of his Liberal/National Party Government at the hands of the Albanese led Labor Party.

Savva jumps right into these issues from chapter one where she discusses the fact that Morrison had deceived the nation and many of his closest colleagues by having himself secretly sworn into five additional cabinet portfolios. Something that only came to light months after the election, and which shocked many of his colleagues who had trusted him, and even regarded him as a friend. Savva says:

Morrison’s secret takeover of ministries showed a contempt of parliament, of conventions, and his ministers, including those he called his best friends, like Josh Frydenberg and Stuart Robert. They took it personally.

After the revelations, his former colleagues spat out all the M words: messianic, megalomaniacal, and plain mad. 

It seems that Morrison regarded loyalty as a one-way street.

As every reader will know, Morrison presented himself as being strongly religious and Savva points out that he used religion to harvest votes in ways that no Australian leader before him had done so. He apparently believed that God had chosen him to be prime minister and that his 2019 surprise victory was in fact a God given miracle.

As the book progresses Savva details Morrison’s many personality flaws such as being careless with the truth; an unwillingness to take responsibility for his mistakes; a lack of ability to empathise; arrogance; a refusal to seek or accept advice; disloyalty to friends and colleagues and importantly, a failure to deal with many of the important issues facing the nation. 

As has become clear from the results of the 2022 election, the Liberal Party lost the support of many women, particularly professional women. This came to a head when, under Parliamentary privilege, Morrison brutally and unfairly attacked Christine Holgate who was the CEO of Australia Post. Savva suggests that this was a “pivotal moment in Morrison’s downfall.” 

According to focus groups many people became disillusioned with the fact that Morrison was obsessed with stunts that played to the daily news cycle such as washing someone’s hair, welding with his mask raised, playing the ukelele (badly), and crash tackling eight-year-old Luca Fauvette while playing soccer with kids. She quotes one voter as saying:

If Scott Morrison wants to lead the country again, why is he playing silly games like football with children.

The book goes on to discuss the disastrous decision by Morrison to secretly head off to Hawaii during the height of the Black Summer fires and how this was emblematic of his poor judgement, as was his subsequent comment about not holding the hose.

Most readers who have even a passing interest in politics will be familiar with many of the events and incidents dealt with in the book such as the handling of the bushfires, the vaccine rollout, the Brittany Higgins events, the March for Justice, the allegations against Christian Porter and Alan Tudge, but what makes Savva’s analysis so special is the amount of behind the scenes detail that she provides and the way she ties it all together to explain Morrison’s demise. 

The book analyses the successful rise of the Teal candidates and how their success was largely attributable to voters turning off Morrison because of his personality flaws, as well as his lack of action in relation to climate change and an integrity commission. It is suggested that Morrison regarded reform as being “a vanity project” and that he never had any wish to leave a legacy. He certainly got his wish in that regard.

The book concludes with a consideration of the post-election Liberal Party and its future, and the question about whether and how it can rebuild having regard to the continuing internal differences between the conservatives and the moderates. 

This is a book which will appeal to the political tragic as well as the less political involved reader. However, when reading the book, I was reminded of the comment attributed to Otto von Bismarck that “the man who wishes to keep his respect for sausages and laws should not see how either is made,” and I found myself naively wondering why the political game is played the way it is and wishing it could be otherwise. Some readers might feel that they are being given just too much distasteful detail.

Laurie Oaks comments that:

(This book is) the gripping inside story of how Scott Morrison went from miracle man to roadkill. Savva portrays a fatally flawed leader who trashed his government, his party and his legacy.

This is well written book that every voter concerned about good government should read.

Highly recommended.

John Watts