Outgoing NSW Liberal Catherine Cusack has joined a growing chorus of female politicians who have accused Scott Morrison of bullying, saying he has “ruined” the Liberal party and she will not vote for him or the party at the federal election.
Two weeks ago, Cusack announced she would be quitting politics due to her outrage at how disaster funding was allocated to flood victims in northern NSW by the federal government.
Now, in an opinion piece published by The Guardian, Cusack has endorsed Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti–Wells’ character assessment of Morrison, who recently called him an “autocrat and bully who has no moral compass”.
The list of current or former politicians who have now issued damning character assessments of Morrison is long. Cusack joins not just Fierravanti–Wells, but also independent senator Jacqui Lambie, One Nation senator Pauline Hanson, and former Liberal MP Julia Banks. Former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has also allegedly called Morrison a “horrible, horrible person” in leaked text messages.
In her opinion piece, Cusack wrote that Morrison has “trashed” the Liberal party over a period of two decades. She mentioned his time as a state director in NSW, then as a “scheming MP” and “now as prime minister finding loopholes in our constitution to delay pre selections in order to get his way”.
She accused the federal Liberal party of delaying “the urgent need” for climate action by at least 15 years and said the values of Liberal party legend Robert Menzies “have been abandoned by the Morrison government”.
She also reiterated her outrage at Morrison’s “brazen attempt” to exclude flood victims in a Labor seat in northern NSW from disaster relief payments in the wake of the floods. She also criticised the compliance of other federal Liberal politicians under Morrison, labelling them “compliant tools”.
“My speaking out about Scott Morrison, he brings this on himself by playing games with flood funding,” Cusack told ABC radio on Tuesday morning.
“He has totally lost his moral compass, it’s unbelievable. It’s unbelievable that any political leader would behave like this in relation to flood victims.
“I can’t vote for Scott Morrison, full stop, at the next election.
“Doing the right thing now won’t get my vote. Because it doesn’t undo the wrong that he has done to my community.”