Scott Morrison, as was inevitable, is quitting parliament for another job and, as feels like it was inevitable, the speculation is that his next salary will come from an American source.
He wants to face “new challenges in the global corporate sector”, which covers a lot of options, few in his home country.
Australian employers know his reputation and perhaps were unlikely to see him as an asset.
In the United States, there are his kind of people and they are on the rise.
Australia is getting used to watching former prime ministers at a loose end after defeat. There’s just not much call for them.
Then, there’s the money.
Since he lost the May 2022 election, Morrison has been telling sympathisers he needs a better salary than the basic pay for a backbencher of $217,000.
It seems there was little saved from the $550,000 a year he took in over close to four years as PM.
He gets super, depending on his contributions, as well as perks such as an office and a travel gold pass.
None of this, moaned Morrison, is enough for educating his two girls, paying off a mortgage and living in the appropriate manner.
And it is hard to be employed if you are a former leader named Scott Morrison who has been condemned here and abroad as a liar, and as a bungler of major matters, domestic and global.
The Liberal Malcolm Turnbull had a comfortable lifestyle and a range of interests to revive when he resigned. Labor’s Kevin Rudd bounced around energetically before becoming our ambassador in the US, while his party colleague Julia Gillard developed a global role in education. Tony Abbott tried various adventures, such as trade adviser to the UK Tory government, but seems under occupied.
Morrison has just as much blind self confidence as any of his predecessors, and a special factor to overcome his lack of ability.
The Morrison brand of Pentecostal Christianity – a faith loudly professed and credited with his successes though not his failures – would appeal to the American variants and brother Scott would already have links to those groups.
His book to be released in May – Plans for Your Good: A Prime Minister’s Testimony of God’s Faithfulness – in the title and elsewhere shamelessly trades on his former job, two years after he lost it.
It is expected to have a niche market in Australia but could be a calling card for Morrison as he builds his US contacts. Help certainly would come from the author of the book’s foreword, former Trump vice-president Mike Pence.
Morrison also has the advantage of involvement in Aukus, the multibillion-dollar deal to arm Australia with nuclear submarines.
He is no defence expert, and French president Emmanuel Macron made no secret he didn’t think he could be trusted.
But it’s another president Morrison will court – the man he expects to win the 2024 US election, Donald Trump.
The two met with Morrison’s visit to the US in September 2019 and the Australian leader impressed Trump by following him around like a puppy dog on major issues such as relations with China.
Of greater concern to his successor Peter Dutton will be the byelection contest for Cook, the seat Morrison holds.
The Liberals can expect to retain the Sydney seat, but preselection of a candidate could be a touch messy, as the area has groups of conservative Christians keen to get their chosen one into parliament. There also will be pressure to pick a woman to gain the safe seat.
But by then Morrison will have left his unpopularity behind, and perhaps even his home in the Shire.
Malcolm Farr is a political journalist
