Australia: The Morrison Way

Long before Scott Morrison won the job as Australia’s prime minister, he was offered advice on leadership that could very well come to be seen as a defining feature of his foreign policy.

Assuming, that is, he stays around long enough to leave a meaningful legacy.

After August, when the latest round of political bloodletting broke out, the record now stands at six changes in Australia’s top job inside a turbulent decade, and Morrison must face the uncertainty of another national election within the year.

But for the moment, the job and the opportunity are his. Morrison made an early splash in foreign affairs by raising the prospect that Australia could formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and review support for the nuclear deal with Iran, a move criticized by opponents as a effort to garner local Jewish community support in a crucial by-election. Yet this close to a national vote, it seems likely that the biggest difference Morrison will bring to the way Australia navigates the world will be one of presentation, rather than a substantive break from the past five years of conservative rule. And here is where Morrison’s approach to leadership will be important.

Morrison’s style was shaped by a moment back in the lonely days of opposition before 2013. It was then, starved of the resources of government, where wit and personal contacts were often crucial ingredients in the quest to claw back power, that Morrison sought out the nation’s last conservative leader, John Howard.

Australia was in the throes of a deeply divisive debate about asylum seekers crossing the rugged seas to the nation’s north, a theme that has dominated the local political scene more than any other in the past 20 years.

The conservatives wielded a potent slogan to attack the then-Labor government: “Stop the boats.” But Morrison wanted the benefit of Howard’s experience. He wanted to answer the question of how, in policy and practice, to get this done.

Morrison had himself never been in government. He won his seat in parliament at a time of Labor ascendency, leaving him to rise in the ranks of opposition as a blunt and often brutal political warrior, but not a proven manager in the byzantine realm of the bureaucracy.

What Howard told him would have an enduring influence.

Make it one person, was Howard’s simple message. One person to be solely responsible for delivering the outcome, to keep on top of the details, to make decisions, to drive the separate and sometimes conflicting parts of the public service. Not a committee or an inter-agency task force, where confusion can grow about who is ultimately in charge, or blame can be spread. One person. A supremo. The minister-in-control.

Morrison has taken this advice as a mantra. It is evident in the way he cherished a steel-cut trophy in the shape of a fishing boat from Asia, stamped with abrupt lettering: “I stopped these.” A gift from a constituent, the trophy serves as a memento of his central role in turning back asylum seekers from Australia’s shores when his conservative party did eventually seize back power. Morrison acted with unprecedented scope and authority as immigration minister, overseeing the military, intelligence, and civilian agencies under what was dubbed Operation Sovereign Borders.

This same attitude to crucial areas of policy – to put himself at the center – was immediately apparent when Morrison became prime minister after emerging from the leadership turmoil in August with the main prize.

Morrison described the “most urgent and pressing need right now” to be relief from a long drought crippling farms and rural towns in the country’s east. In one of his first acts, he made sure to be filmed instructing the senior military officer who had been assigned to lead the recovery.

“I’ve tasked major generals before to do big jobs,” Morrison told the man in uniform as the cameras recorded, “and we’ll be talking every day and we’ll certainly be meeting on a regular basis.”

Talking every day to the man in control. Call it the Morrison way.

In the weeks afterward, Morrison made himself again the point of focus as a bizarre, yet costly food scare swept across the nation. Someone – “a coward and a grub” as Morrison put it in his pungent fashion – had hidden sewing needles inside strawberries, not only sparking fears of children stabbing themselves painfully in the mouth, but also threatening Australia’s reputation as a safe food exporter to lucrative overseas markets. It was the kind of crisis that might not seem the high politics of state, yet if not contained could quickly have wider and lasting repercussions for the AU$45 billion (US$32 billion) agricultural exports sector.

Morrison marched into parliament, munching on the bright red fruit and pledging to ensure public safety. He made sure to have his actions filmed and posted on social media, too.

This habit to put himself at the center is well-suited to reacting to a crisis, where simple themes dominate and tough talk readily cuts through in the blizzard of media coverage. Morrison struggled more in the years he served on the portfolios of social services and treasury, when he was judged by some colleagues and commentators for a lackluster performance explaining nuance and complexity. This was a contrast to his time as immigration minister, when he could deflect difficult questions by invoking national security concerns or the infamous secrecy around “on-water matters.”

Now that he is prime minister, if there is one arena when the leader’s voice clearly rises above all others, it is in setting the direction for Australia to navigate the world. In that, Morrison will discover, as his predecessors have, that an instinct to put himself at the center of Australia’s foreign policy will be rewarded with attention. And it is from here that significant changes might eventually be heard.

The role of the prime minister in Australian diplomacy has always been important, yet has become manifestly more dominant. This marks a significant change from years past. For example, when Howard won government in 1996, it took him a full six months before he flew out of the country on his first overseas visit as leader, heading to the Marshall Islands for a forum with Pacific island leaders.

For Morrison, barely six days had passed before he jetted off to Indonesia.

Partly, this is a consequence of changes wrought by globalization. Personnel also matter. Morrison has appointed as foreign minister Marise Payne, a politician with plenty of international experience and far less of a profile than her predecessor, Julie Bishop, who was often in the spotlight. It means when analysts and the rest of the world wonder about Australia’s international relations, attention will invariably be drawn to Morrison.

Of course, most of Morrison’s actions so far as leader have been aimed chiefly at domestic voters rather than curious onlookers abroad. Such a focus on the home front will be the theme for the coming months. Under Australia’s abbreviated political cycle of three-year terms in office, Morrison must go to the polls sometime before November 2019 – an earlier date appears more likely – with the messy legacy of political infighting a weight on his party’s campaign.

It is a record that will hamper his personal diplomatic efforts, too. As one reporter pointedly asked Morrison only moments before a meeting in Jakarta with Indonesian President Joko Widodo: “How do you convince your opposite number that you’re not just a stopgap prime minister for the next seven or eight months?”

The question was more than fair. Australia now has the unenviable record of churning through more leaders since the turn of the century than neighboring Papua New Guinea. Yet it is also across this same period of time that the role of the prime minister has become more important in diplomacy, especially with the proliferation of leadership summits on the calendar. These add to a regular and growing roster of annual or biennial visits by the Australian prime minister to key foreign capitals under “comprehensive strategic partnerships” or some other nifty formulation to imply stronger relations, or hosting foreign leaders in return.

Morrison will embark on the busy summit season in November, with Australia expected at the table for the East Asia Summit (EAS), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathering, and G20 meetings all in quick succession. Two of those gatherings didn’t exist at the leaders’ level just over a decade ago.

Morrison is not likely to take any grand initiative to the summits on behalf of Australia to salve the world’s ills. Instead, he’ll spend much of the time introducing himself as Australia’s latest leader. It is the cost of leadership turnover, having to establish new relationships and losing the benefit of past ties – although it is not a distraction unique to Australia. As Morrison said of the meeting with Jokowi: “We’re all politicians, we all face elections… we all understand the volatilities of politics and we talk about them too, politician to politician.”

Where unexpected issues arise, Morrison’s past exposure has been more to the national security side of the bureaucracy, rather than the diplomats. He was the minister responsible for the review of foreign investments, for instance, and often arrived at national security committee or cabinet meetings armed with opinions. But he also made a notable early effort in his time as prime minister to soothe attitudes in China.

Beijing was angered, among other recent friction in the relationship, by the exclusion of Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei from the rollout of 5G mobile networks, which Morrison announced in the midst of the leadership unrest. During a luncheon for the Chinese community in Sydney in October, Morrison made a notable effort to steer around debates over differing values, instead emphasizing shared interests and mutual respect even if “Australia and China won’t always agree on everything.” Morrison later assured Chinese business magazine Caixin in an interview that the 5G decision was not directed at any county. Morrison’s efforts appeared to be the groundwork to secure a meeting with China’s Xi Jinping either in Singapore during the EAS or Port Moresby during APEC. Such bilateral talks will be judged as a test of whether the Australia-China relationship has moved past a freeze imposed by Beijing.

Playing into politics back home, these summits will principally offer a chance for Morrison to look the part, producing the kind of photo-op montage to be deployed in election campaign advertising to show him getting on with the job. Some squabbles occasionally break out over specifics in foreign policy direction, both between and within Australia’s two major political parties. Nevertheless these debates rarely define an election.

Of the international themes likely to have an influence in the 2019 ballot, the big picture of U.S.-China tension in Asia is unlikely to play a major role. Both parties, after robust jostling that cost a Labor senator his job, agreed on legislation aimed at curbing foreign influence campaigns (read: China’s) in Australia, and votes won’t turn on whether Australia finally does or doesn’t conduct a freedom of navigation exercise within 12 nautical miles of China’s fortified outposts in the South China Sea. U.S. President Donald Trump continues to be a lightning rod, yet opinion polls show the U.S. alliance itself continues to have broad support. (Morrison would probably see his relationship with the famously-media obsessed Trump got off to a good start after the New York Times headlined an interview with Morrison “Trump finally makes a friend,” at least compared to leaks about a testy phone call with his predecessor Malcolm Turnbull. Morrison’s potential switch on Jerusalem and the Iran nuclear deal will be another signal of support for Trump.)

The question of processing asylum seekers will remain a political danger to Labor, especially should some in the party rebel against its support for Australia maintaining a camp on Nauru, or should concern over conditions on the remote island be portrayed as a weakening of the existing policy. Climate change is another danger, as elements in the conservative party want Australia to withdraw from greenhouse gas mitigation accords, and sharp controversy remains about Australia’s position as the world’s largest coal exporter. (Morrison famously brandished a lump of coal in parliament to during a debate with political opponents, while his new environment minister had to fend off diplomatic controversy in October after being accused of telling a Pacific leader the region only ever wanted “cash” from Australia to combat climate change.)

Yet during those long flights away from home, especially to Buenos Aires for the G20, Morrison should ask a question of his own to his advisers: Is the busy international schedule for leaders is really that effective?

While there are doubtless chances for important side meetings amid the hustle of the summit circuit, this “hail fellow well met” style of diplomacy has stopped producing meaningful breakthroughs with a major agenda. The biggest contest often is who will next play host. Trump’s breezy dismissal of the communique of the G7 summit in June is a case in point. The valuable time of leaders, with all the scheduling challenge presented of gathering them together, is better reserved for the moments that matter. The iterative diplomacy is best left to ministers and officials.

Then again, maybe this is not the year for a new prime minister to question the guest list. Trump will skip the summits in Asia, while Xi will be there, inevitably furthering the debate about U.S. competition with China in the region. Even Russia’s Vladimir Putin will make a pointed appearance at the EAS in Singapore for the first time in years, as well as at APEC in Port Moresby.

As for Scott Morrison, what better place to be than at the center of everything?