The Fairytale

by H. G. Nelson

  He has knocked up a fowl run in the backyard. It is very professional, with twenty-four laying boxes and a built-in self-feeding and watering system. The fowl-house construction meant that the whole Morrison clan can slip away and get their feet up for at least three weeks before the chooks run out of food pellets and water. All he has to do before laying rubber to a NSW holiday hotspot is to notify the office manager at the PMO to swing by and collect the eggs.

  During his rise to the top, many media critics thought ‘Phillips Head’ Morrison was headed for a career in television. The closest he got to this ambition were the regular appearances in the Parliament House courtyard where he made a number of significant announcements. Through the early months of his reign, with his hands gripping the nation’s levers, he developed a professional polish standing behind the lectern and delivering a skilled spray with that trademark wicked smirk.

  During his rise to the top, many media critics thought ‘Phillips Head’ Morrison was headed for a career in television.

  ‘Flash’ Scott had a rare skill. He could make those long, intricate announcements he dropped earlier that month, at the same lectern, seem totally fresh and wonderfully original. When he laid them on the public again, the press gallery responded enthusiastically as though they were hearing these repeated sprays for the first time. He was that good!

  But Scott’s real television inspiration was not Hey, Hey! or the inspirational handiwork of Captain Wood, Scott Cam, it was that very popular long-running TV show of the nineties, Home Improvement.

  This was a vehicle for comic Tim Allen as a suburban dad, who was always todger deep in DIY scrapes around the house. In his working life Tim presented the show within the show, Tool Time with Tim the Toolman Taylor.

  Tim the Toolman was a master of adding his special mayhem to the on-going domestic chaos. When it all became too much, Tim escaped to the double garage attached to the house for a fiddle with a red 1933 Ford Roadster’s donk. He sought a certain Zen-like grace by laying a set of socket spanners on the never completed 350 cubic inch power pack.

  The running gag in Tool Time, was, well, fairly obvious: Tim was unable to complete the simplest of tasks, like banging in a nail or finding the right screwdriver. He had to be rescued from DIY disaster by his trusty colleague, Al Borland. Al understood tools and how they worked, unlike Tim, who was a complete amateur. When ‘Toolman’ was not running amok in the studio, he was searching out power tools with even more buzz.

  The great Sooty Morrison lifestyle themes were all there. The ‘Have a Go’ man’s go-to position is tradie focused. A lingering shop at Bunnings was always a terrific day out for Scott. People with four-by-four dual-cab utes and big V8 motors with something to say about tyre pressures were his favourite people.

  If there was taxpayer loot to be dished out to revive a struggling national economy, the instant response from ‘Jabs’ was to shovel a load of cash in the direction of extensive home improvements. When tapped for the throne he believed Australia was short of carports, second stories, en suites, third bathrooms, pergolas and granny flats. In fact, it was short of everything a pandemic-hit nation needed ‘to get back to normal’. Swinging a claw hammer, digging a trench and taking aim at some plywood sheets with a nail gun were obviously the right ways to get back on track for thinking Australians.

  In Scott’s world, federal tax relief must always target the nation’s cash-strapped tradies first. The rest of the nation can get in the queue, shut up and wait. If the LNP party room was forced to consider a handout and leg-up to the long-suffering, almost forgotten and desperate arts community, then this government largesse had to have a total tradie bias.

  ‘Road Maps to Recovery’ Morrison was keen to dish out chunks of cash to lure Hollywood heavyweights Down Under to cook up Marvel- and DC Comic-based projects in our world-class studios. A large wedge of loot encouraged big-name blow-ins to knock up heavily subsidised action movies instead of taking on local productions tackling great Aussie tales like The Brendan Fevola Story and Eddie McGuire’s Lost Weekend.

  The foreign action features, destined for the cinema-mad Chinese market, are comic book–inspired capers or space epics involving battles between good and evil, calling for acrobatics performed in front of a green screen and a lot of time spent in post-production.

  As Sooty said to ‘Grumpy’ Cecil Sloop in an extensive profile for Show and Shine: The Election Special, two days after being tapped by his party room colleagues for the top job:

  Grumps, I love the Arts. I often go to the movies. Sure, I was limited by COVID protocols, but I went twice last year. Admittedly I saw Spider-Man: Homecoming twice. I loved it. I even got the Spider-Man socks for Christmas.

  Cecil, I have the Love Machine at home so naturally I am a tool man. There is nothing I like more than laying a shifting spanner or a Phillips head screwdriver on a problem.

  Missus Soot has a never-ending list of jobs tacked to the fridge at home and it is getting longer and longer. The list is tacked to the fridge with a couple of Maui island life souvenir fridge magnets. What with China on the turn and the continual power/energy rumpus in the party room, I just don’t have the time. But give me a set of Stillsons and a blocked S bend and I am in heaven.

  Cec, I don’t mind admitting it, I have modelled myself on ‘Toolman’ Taylor, who like me has all the answers even if they are wrong. Tools are king in my cabinet!

  Now duck out to the truck, sonny Jim, grab the footprints and bring the gum boots. We cannot knock off until this Fowlerware is fixed. The lumpy, brown stuff will go everywhere when she blows.

  Sunday is always the big day in the Morrison household. It’s a day when the two great stabilising prongs of ‘Have a Go’s life swing into focus. There’s an early clap-along with all the gang down at the Palace of Prayer, often with a couple of tunes from the Demon Souls of Bundeena. ‘Appalled’ is up and about and moving when the Souls flick open the Slayer songbook and launch into those big ‘hell to pay’ biblical hits.

  But the highlight of the day is an afternoon of rugby league at Shark Park née Endeavour Field and a top-of-the-table clash featuring his team, Cronulla Sharks. The Sharks are the biggest noise in the sport-mad Sutherland Shire. But there was always so much to do before the league kick-off.

  Ah, the Shire, it is a special place. That is why ‘The Coalman’ Scott lives there. Only special Sydneysiders are allowed to drop anchor along its sandy shores and enticing rivers. Once in the Shire, many Australians spend their whole lives camped in comfort without heading north to the wintery wild lands beyond Tom Ugly’s Bridge.

  Unless you live there, the Shire is a very difficult concept to get your head around. This fabulous patch of southern Sydney has its own unique outlook. A heady atmosphere in the joint proclaims, ‘Listen pal, we belong here! You don’t! Now you know what a road is, why don’t you use it!’

  Top of the Shire agenda are home DIY renovations, air-conditioning, cars (especially V8 utes), real estate prices, boats with twin outboards, specials at Bunnings and how bloody crowded the beaches are becoming, and it’s getting worse every year!

  The genius of the man they call ‘Smoky’ was to drag these suburban issues centre stage and place them at the top of the national political hit parade during the 2019 election.

  After the sing-a-long clap and a loosening of the larynx on the holy hits, the PM, with the portfolio of tradies, drops in to Caringbah Bunnings to sniff the specials and hopefully bail up the knowledgeable staff for a twenty-minute chat about the speed and stamina of the new range of Makita battery-powered angle grinders.

  He might pick up a Black and Decker Workmate, which he really needs, now that he is strapping on the nail bag again, a pack of double power points for the laundry and enough wood to build a cubby for the kids. That is why the bloke drives a ute!

  ‘On the Bus’ runs a four-door, dual-cab Ranger Wildtrak, five-cylinder, 3.2-litre turbo diesel. A twin pack of supersized tradie cupboards are bolted to the back tr
ay and are stacked with the latest hardware. Up front there is plenty of room for the seldom seen, but oft referred to, ‘Jen and the girls’.

  At the 2019 federal election, the ute and ute technology featured heavily on the hustings. Post-election university surveys suggested the Liberal Party’s visible commitment to the ute may have got ‘The Sootster’ over the line.

  Raves from the ‘COVID app’ man and Employment Minister Cash suggested that the Labor Party were coming hard for Australia’s utes and four-wheel-drive wagons. ‘The Curry for the Country’ minister’s rave was, ‘If Labor got up, Albo and his lot of mad loony socialist greenies were going to force all Australians to drive electric vehicles. Imagine our nation without the heady aroma of diesel.’

  Minister Cash is easily spotted on the campaign trail. She is a committed wearer of captivating, high-waisted loon pants in beige and appeared at many campaign rallies, arm in arm, with Captain Smoke.

  They attacked Labor’s all-electric, no-petrol policies, saying this mad idea was an assault on Australian values, Australian interests, the Australian way of life and Australian wildlife.

  ‘Under Labor, the weekend, as we understand it today, would be history!’ bellowed Minister Cash. ‘The electric car has bugger-all power and so little prod forward that it couldn’t pull the skin off a rice custard, let alone a boat on a trailer with twin Evinrudes tacked on the back.’ It was a powerful argument. The nation was suddenly terrified.

  Many real Australians decided they could not take the risk and slept in their dual cabs armed with a shanghai, ball bearings and slug guns in case Albo’s ‘No Petrol’ stormtroopers came sneaking about in the night looking for the keys.

  But the nation was mercifully saved from this horrible fate on election day with the words, ‘How good is Australia?’, and everything returned to normal. Climate change was back in its box and we could steam ahead planning that base load generating coal-fired power station with confidence.

  With ‘Sharkman’ safe in The Lodge, Sundays were once again great. After a hard morning on the sing-song and a top shop at hardware central, ‘Under the Bus’ often felt peckish. He swung the ute into Engadine Macca’s car park for a double burger with the lot and a side of fries.

  This Golden Arches, the saintly jewel of junk food in the Shire, is the PM’s spiritual trough. The hard-working team behind the counter always have a curried chicken burger and lettuce on tap in case ‘The Values Bloke’ turns up in the drivethru with Minister Cash travelling shotgun. This Golden M location is now a very popular stopping-off point on the ‘PM Morrison: This is your Life!’ Bus Tour. It’s a thirty-minute pause for the ravenous patrons.

  Before heading out to Shark Park on Captain Cook Drive, ‘Take the Knee’ Morrison dresses for an afternoon of relaxation. It is an afternoon of rugby league, a few beers with the mates and bellowing inanities at the Sharks and those idiotic league-lovers who support the opposition. It requires dressing down in well-travelled and well-stained Country Road or R.M. Williams gear.

  He has a special cupboard of rural-inspired clobber in the double garage at home, Kirribilli and The Lodge. In his working life, Captain Soot may be booked to open a school fete in Orange, a drainage canal in Ceduna or a Wagyu beef feedlot in Longreach. His PR people know the news cameras will be there and the last thing they want is the big bloke to stand out like a city goose. The cupboard of clobber, like Superman’s phone box, allows him to slip in and emerge minutes later looking the part.

  The ‘No Jab No Job’ master’s role often calls for glib emotion and fake sincerity, as seen on the post-inferno Handshakes Tour of early 2020. He knows looking the part will enable him to deliver all important rural and regional emotion with total conviction and pitched with perfect tone.

  The washed-out baby-vomit-coloured chino daks with the dropped crotch and the alluring smidgen of plumber’s smile anchors the ensemble. The faded denim shirt that looks as though he has wrestled his way into it screams, ‘Look out rugby league!’ That’s the look those pesky PR people want.

  His love of league is well documented. In early pandemic times, ‘Gold Standard’’ famously declared, after locking down the nation and confining everyone to their homes for a month, that he was off to the footy on Sunday.

  His love of league is well documented. In early pandemic times, ‘Gold Standard’ famously declared, after locking down the nation and confining everyone to their homes for a month, that he was off to the footy on Sunday. This was meant to relax the nation, suggesting business as usual, until the trailing press pack pointed out that ‘No Tick No Jab’ would be there by himself as everyone else was indoors. A wise media head up the back of the bus suggested that ‘National Anthems’ going to the footy when the rest of the country was stuck inside was not the best look for a senior politician.

  But that is the smirker’s mindset. Off to Aloha-land when the joint is burning down, off to the footy when the nation is locked inside.

  As Scott said to Quentin ‘Clanger’ Wilkins in an in-depth cover story for the final edition of Rugby League Week:

  I love the whole vibe connected with Cronulla. I love the Shire and I love the Sharks lifestyle. Clangs, as a five-year-old kid, I saw myself slotting into the back row. I modelled my game on Sludge Rodgers, the original and the best, I billed myself Sludge 3.

  I set myself the goal of 107-plus games, I had even prepared a speech when I was tapped for a Dally M. Of course, it wasn’t to be, marketing came calling and then the Party knocked on my door. They bellowed, ‘We want you, Toolman.’

  With changes in rugby league scheduling, due to the demands of television, matches are scheduled for five nights a week. The PM yearns for a simpler time when the rugby league nation could be sure that the Sharks were doing their thing 3 pm on Sundays. This was an era when he, along with the tradie world, could down tools with confidence. It was a golden age of certainty. The world knew the Sharks would never win the Premiership but everything else was as it should be. This all changed in 2016 when the Sharks did the impossible and won the flag. The Shire is still celebrating.

  If it is on the cool side with a southerly blowing, ‘Curry King’ Scott rolls out to Shark Park in the vintage Cronulla jumper circa 1990. It’s the glamorous Brewer’s Draught and Aussie Duct sponsored affair in Col Eadie white, Tommy Bishop blue and Gavin Miller black. Up top, jammed on the bonce, is a beanie signed by all the players from the 1986 side. The gear is broken in with sauce and beer dribbles down the front. At the footy, ‘A Jab by Xmas for all’ Morrison is a regular bloke who bellows, ‘Go Sharkies!’ with as much mad fervour as any other committed Sharks supporter.

  The catering at Shark Park suits the PM’s tastes. Whenever the ref blows his whistle, the crash of big powerful units in shorts assaults the ears and that heady Dencorub tang wafts into the stands, Handshakes and everyone is on their feet raving, and suddenly they are starving.

  Luckily there is a pop-up food and beverage outlet five metres from where ‘Every Aussie Home by Christmas’ PM parks the bot. The truck offers a limited range of exciting Australian cuisine, four varieties of pie, including the very popular curried beef and offal, hotdogs, thirty-centimetre sausage rolls and litres of beer. There is a great range of genuine big-volume, Aussie-brewed beers on offer and not a ‘busted-arse’ Yak-style craft brew in sight.

  Foreign ministers know that visiting dignitaries are in very safe hands when ‘The Jabmeister’ suggests an afternoon at Shark Park.

  Heads of state will never be embarrassed when they turn up to sample the culture or the cuisine, such is the variety of food options at Shark Park. The PM likes to grab a fistful of pie before kick-off. In the first stanza, he will sink the molars into a one-hander with a great flaky pastry casing. Like most Australians, ‘Anthems’ Morrison likes a pie case that can hold a good depth of beef and gravy without dribbling over a crusty rim and down the front of the Country Road denim shirt. He wants something to shove into the cake hole in celebration once a young Shark
in his first game busts the line and runs fifty metres to score. The last thing a league fan wants in a moment of triumph over a top-of-the-table outfit like the hated Manly Sea Eagles is to discover the pie has gone wobbly and dumped the contents all over the front of his daks.

  Heads of state will never be embarrassed when they turn up to sample the culture or the cuisine, such is the variety of food options at Shark Park.

  Statesmen and women, especially foreign ministers, who know bugger-all about rugby league, are stunned by the Shark Park atmosphere. They are reluctant to leave, wandering back to their official cars gobsmacked by the skill of the players, the excitable crowd and the local cuisine.

  More importantly, guests leave loving the greatest game of all. Especially if the thoughtful catering staff have waddled out of the kitchen, at half-time, with a cup of tea, a tray of scones and a Shark Park special: double-dipped, creamed lamingtons.

  The world’s best on the world stage

  Lift the gaze and savour the international perspective on our leaders.

  Overseas perception is often very different to our own. It will surprise no one that in a round-up of late mail, in the dying days of that fabulous Trump administration 2016–20, that ‘Man of Steel 2.0’ Morrison was tapped for the highest military honour the Americans can dish out, the Legion of Merit. This is right up with the Aussie Knights and Dames wheeze that former PM Tony Abbott hurled at the upper reaches of Australian society with a special one-off made available to HRH Prince Philip. Remember the Man of Steel, the original and the best, was former PM John Howard.

  This Merit bauble is strung around the neck of anyone for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements.

  As Australians we are too close to the action to really see what the ‘G7plus’ man has been up to on the world stage. The American view is that our Sooty is a Sergeant Slaughter type ready to rush in, all guns blazing, whenever there is an international dumpster fire threatening to get out of control. ‘The Sarge’ summed up the medal with these few words: ‘It is not all about me. This gong, which I rate alongside the Dally Ms, is something all Australians can take pride in. Go Sharkies!’