There is a curious phenomenon in modern politics whereby leaders rejected by voters at home are reborn as sages abroad. It is a kind of political reincarnation, except instead of coming back as something wiser, they come back with a microphone, an expense account, and a suspiciously friendly audience.
Take Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison. Two of the most out-of-their-depth, ineffectual, policy-light and spectacularly uninspiring Australian prime ministers of the past 50 years. Governments so underwhelming that voters didn’t merely change their minds – they slammed the door, locked it, and put the furniture up against it.
And yet, somehow, both men now roam the globe dispensing wisdom.
This is surprising, because while neither man excelled at governing Australia, they have since been warmly embraced on the international speaking circuit – mainly by right-wing conferences, “freedom” forums, and governments that find Western accents useful when saying deeply illiberal things.
Tony Abbott, whose prime ministership was defined by instability, internal warfare and three-word slogans that passed for policy, is now invited to explain leadership. Abbott struggled to explain his own government to his own party room, but apparently this has not deterred organisers elsewhere.
Scott Morrison’s record is fresher – and stranger. A prime minister who treated government as a branding exercise, communicated almost exclusively through slogans, and managed crises with photo opportunities rather than competence. A man so committed to secrecy that, in his final months in office, he quietly appointed himself to five ministries without telling the ministers involved.
Ironically, since leaving office, Morrison appears to have lost the ability to keep secrets altogether.
The man who secretly ran half the government now speaks endlessly. Panels, conferences, fireside chats. There is no shortage of words – just an ongoing shortage of insight. Morrison’s speeches are long on grievance, heavy on culture-war talking points, and light on anything resembling reflection or accountability.
One might reasonably ask: who is paying to hear this?
The answer is not “the public.” These are not broad, curious audiences wondering what went wrong. They are curated rooms. Friendly rooms. Rooms where applause is guaranteed and difficult questions are optional. Rooms where electoral defeat is reframed as martyrdom and democratic accountability as persecution.
Failure, it seems, has become a credential.
In a healthy democracy, losing office used to mean something. It was feedback. A verdict. An instruction to step aside. Now it is merely the start of a second career – one in which rejection at home is marketed overseas as proof of courage.
None of this is illegal. None of it is particularly new. But it is revealing.
If Abbott and Morrison had left office respected, effective, and admired, their global speaking careers would make sense. Instead, they left behind governments remembered largely for chaos, secrecy, and exhaustion. And yet, somewhere overseas, there is always a stage, a lectern, and an audience eager not to ask why.
Perhaps that is the real lesson they are teaching now – not how to govern well, but how to fail upward with confidence.
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The funding comes from FRWNJ American groups like the Kock Brothers etc already itemised in AIMN. The whole FRW theology is encapsulated in the movie, ”The Kingsmen: The Secret Service” (2014) starring Colin Firth, that includes a wonderful fight scene at about 30 minutes.
Could it be that the Australian afterlife population have said, “Get stuffed, we don’t want them here and ruining the atmosphere!” Now we’re doomed to see (and unfortunately hear) the walking dunces…er, dead for decades to come?
You’ve nailed it Roswell !!!! Again. Please send this to Morrison and Abbott.
Thanks Roswell, a nice summary of their dysfunction.
It’s ironic really that two of the worst Prime Ministers in recent history just cannot STFU, because they were right and the voting public was wrong.
Thanks, Tess.
It is interesting that Howard, Abbott and Morrison were resoundingly defeated by the whole Australian electorate and some particularly in their own electorates! As also was Dutton before he even had an opertunity to become a PM!
The current implosion of the coalition is a follow on from this and particularly due to both the calibre of the incumbents and their mainly corrupt polocies!
The problem facing the libNats is they are trying to find a new leader whose attributes will be based on the “virtues” of all leaders past. Exhuming Menzies or reviving Howard just commits us to a repeat of a history that always ends badly. The fact is neither party currently contains any members fit for the job of national leadership. And so the chitty chat will continue without issue.
Ugh, horrible thought: Thank dog that genetics isn’t more advanced, can you imagine an amalgam Lib creature of Caterpillar Eyebrows, Mad Monk and Scummo from Marketing being loosed on the country?
I know I should be more serious but I tend to see (as you have noticed) the absurdity of things. My motto: I live one step to the left of reality.
Tone the Botty was the most incompetent excuse for a PM this country has ever endured.
That is there reward, for serving the Zionist Jew, not hard to realize that,thats why they where the yarlmuke. Their reward for deceiving the people, shit on the people while helping the criminal banksters.
@ Mediocrates: The only long term beneficiaries of COALition government since 1949 have been the foreign owned multinational corporation ”political donors” and former IPA toadies rewarded with secure Parliamentary incomes & perks for inhibiting the development of Australia for the benefit of Australian voters.
@ Cool Pete: The Suppository of Political Wisdom was overtaken for ineptitude by Scummo of the Five Ministries, the first democratically elected Australian dictator who purchased his position with Royal Assent for a mere $17 MILLION per year from public funds from the military gg to allegedly provide ”leadership training” in competition with our military establishment.
scummo is a famous handclapping new xstian and will be able to trade on that. The rabbott is even more famous for old xstianity plus his slogan ‘I stopped the boats’. His future is also assured.
Sadly, labor’s inability to mount an attack on the failings of these two in government(and the lying rodent before them) is the real reason the three were not condemned and ignored as they deserve.
Don’t forget John Howard who, in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington on Thursday 6/3/08, pretended that he wasn’t given the most humiliating thrashing any political leader in Australia, and possibly the world, has ever had. Howard slammed the Rudd government for abandoning Work Choices as though it wasn’t the single most significant issue on which Labor won the 2007 election. Oh, and he makes no reference to the fact that the party he lead to utter ignominy abandoned every last link to Work Choices after being thrashed yet again by public opinion when Julie Bishop foreshadowed opposing the abolition of AWAs in the Senate. This is not mere denial: it’s outright contempt. And it gets worse. Howard’s Washington speech was entitled “Sharing our common values”. Our! Common! Values!