When Craig Kelly's worlds collided: the events that led to the outspoken MP's abrupt defection
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Version 0 of 1. After the former Liberal’s brawl with Tanya Plibersek, the PM told him to stop promoting unproven Covid therapies and also to ‘look at his office’ When you pull this story apart, a lot of people have been talking to Craig Kelly over the past couple of weeks. It’s interesting, so let’s work through the list. Scott Morrison spoke to the outspoken MP after he brawled in unseemly fashion with Tanya Plibersek in the press gallery corridor on 3 February. According to Kelly, Morrison told him to stop freelancing about unproven Covid-19 therapies and also to “look at his office”. Kelly took Morrison’s “office” observation to mean he needed to look at Frank Zumbo – an adviser who is currently the subject of an apprehended violence order and allegations of inappropriate behaviour by young interns. Kelly says Morrison’s signal about Zumbo was indirect. The MP also says he has no specific recollection of Morrison ever raising Zumbo with him before that conversation, although he can’t be certain. If true, this would denote a studious (some might posit habitual) lack of prime ministerial curiosity about the culture of government offices. Morrison, after all, holds the neighbouring electorate in Sydney’s southern suburbs, and some of the allegations against Zumbo had been reported locally. But if the first prime ministerial pass about Zumbo was indirect, possibly to defuse a potentially volatile situation (like a Kelly tantrum and a departure to the crossbench) the second pass was unequivocal. Yaron Finkelstein, one of Morrison’s senior political advisers, called Kelly last week. This call came amid the escalating crisis about whether or not the government had exercised a proper duty of care to Brittany Higgins – the young staffer who alleged sexual assault by a colleague in Linda Reynolds’ office in early 2019. Finkelstein called Kelly because the office had logged a batch of questions from Guardian Australia about Zumbo and the various allegations. “Yaron was more forceful,” Kelly says. “He said on current evidence, you should stand [the adviser] down.” Kelly says he resisted that instruction. He felt there wasn’t sufficient evidence for dismissal. Kelly says he told Finkelstein: “Your obligation to staff includes not throwing them under the bus for political expediency.” Separately to the Morrison overtures – which can be summarised as an attempt to neutralise various Kelly problems without giving him cause to shapeshift from serial maverick to political martyr – the energy minister, Angus Taylor, was also chasing the MP. Taylor was trying to dissuade Kelly from supporting an amendment to government legislation that would allow the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest in coal. Barnaby Joyce had lobbed the coal amendment, without warning, in the lower house late on Tuesday 16 February – a public “up yours” to the current Nationals leader, Michael McCormack. Kelly signalled publicly he liked the look of the Joyce amendment. That signal from Kelly triggered Taylor, who is supposed to be the right faction whisperer when it comes to matters of climate policy. The energy minister sought to bring Kelly back to the tent on the CEFC legislation because Nationals crossing the floor is one problem but Liberals quite another. Quite apart from whether or not Kelly could be persuaded or unpersuaded from supporting the amendment, the Joyce crew had also been courting Kelly for an entirely different purpose. Joyce and his associates want to sign Kelly up to the Nationals. All of these worlds finally collided on Tuesday, when Kelly stood up in the regular Coalition party room meeting to announce he was quitting the Liberal party to sit on the crossbench. Morrison had been given no advance warning. Liberals absorbed Kelly’s live-action defection in stunned silence. The MP who had his preselection saved by Morrison before the 2019 election had ratted on his own party in the middle of the pandemic – reducing the government’s majority to one seat. Kelly says his theatrical sign-off happened for two reasons. He says when Cory Bernardi left the Liberal party in 2017 he didn’t ever face his colleagues. This was “a bit weak”, Kelly says. “I felt I owed that to the people in the party room to eyeball them.” He says if he’d told Morrison in advance, the news would have been leaked to the media before he’d had a chance to speak to his colleagues. Kelly says he considered quitting the Liberals last week given Morrison had publicly disassociated himself with his views. But, ultimately, he sat tight until the next available party room meeting. So what of the push to recruit Kelly for the Nationals? MPs believe the Joyce crew is courting Kelly as an additional number. Joyce hasn’t given up on returning to the leadership of the Nationals and Lazarus-style comebacks in riven party rooms obviously require numbers. If Joyce could bring Kelly across, if that political coup could be executed, would McCormack really spurn another number for the Nationals party room if it was a Joyce number? Something of an exquisite dilemma, that. Kelly clearly relishes all the sizzle, but he’s currently on the fence about whether Nationals branding works for him. “I’m not sure whether a pair of RM Williams and a big Akubra and a Driza-Bone will necessarily work in Sutherland,” the MP says. “At the moment I’m on the crossbench, I’m intending to fight. I’ll be considering all the different possibilities about the best way I can fight going forward. “There’s no great plan to go the Nationals or anyone else. At the moment it’s no, but I can’t predict 100% what the future is. At the moment I just want to speak frankly, without being held back.” |