Scott Morrison claimed criticisms of his government’s handling of the French submarine contract are “slurs”, as he attempted to fight off explosive claims from Emmanuel Macron that Australia had lied about the deal.

But even as the Prime Minister claimed he had told French President that their submarines deal was going to be cut, Mr Morrison refused to comment on how leaked texts between the leaders found their way into News Corp papers, which showed Mr Macron apparently unaware of the pending contract cancellation just two days before it was announced.

“It was not in our interest to proceed. I communicated that,” Mr Morrison said from a shipyard in Glasgow, before the COP26 climate summit.

The Coalition government was in damage control on Monday, following extraordinary claimsfrom Mr Macron that he had been blindsided by Mr Morrison’s decision to scrap the $50 billion contract for French submarines and instead investigate nuclear boats with the United States and United Kingdom.

“I think this is detrimental to the reputation of your country and your Prime Minister,” the French president said.

When asked whether he thought Mr Morrison had lied about his intentions, Mr Macron replied: “I don’t think, I know”.

Mr Morrison on Monday morning (Australian time) said he didn’t agree with Mr Macron’s claims, and was backed up by senior ministers back home.

By Monday night (Australian time), the Prime Minister decided to lay out in detail his side of the story – focusing on a dinner he had with Mr Macron at the Élysée Palace presidential mansion in June, soon after the AUKUS deal was struck at the G7 in Britain.

Mr Morrison claimed that at that dinner, he had told Mr Macron of his concerns about the submarines contracted with France’s Naval Group.

“At that point I made it very clear that a conventional diesel-powered submarine was not going to meet Australia’s strategic requirements. We discussed that candidly,” the PM claimed.

“At our dinner, I gave the opportunity for the French to respond to the matters that I had raised, and that process took place over the next few months. Now we eventually formed the view that we would agree to disagree, that the Attack class submarine would not meet our requirements.”

 

Shortly before Mr Morrison’s press conference, the Daily Telegraph newspaper published claims – quoting “sources close to the talks” – that Mr Macron was aware the Naval Group contract was going to be torn up.

The News Corp paper also published a message purportedly from Mr Macron to Mr Morrison, two days before the AUKUS pact was announced and the Naval Group contract publicly terminated, where the French President asked “Should I expect good or bad news for our joint submarines ambitions?”

Mr Morrison claimed that message was in relation to attempts to organise a phone call with Mr Macron shortly before the AUKUS nuclear announcement.

He said he was unable to co-ordinate a time with the French.

“We believed absolutely that a conventional submarine wasn’t going to meet our strategic need. That’s why I went to dinner in Elysee, to tell him that … I needed to convey to him very clearly that we had big concerns about that boat meeting our needs,” Mr Morrison said.

 

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2021/11/01/scott-morrison-slurs-sledging...

 

 

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On this one it is a choice of believing Macron or Scotty of Nappy Marketing... My bet is that Macron is telling the truth, but as usual our ScoMo saucisson has fudged a bit while believing he does not lie but call tell porkies — because lying is un-Christian and telling porkies is allowed in miraculous politics. ScoMo is an expert...

Emmanuel Macron accuses Scott Morrison of being a liar, which Morrison denies. Based on observations of Morrison in Australia, many would be inclined to believe Macron. However, it is conceivable that Morrison, in his own mind, is convinced that he did not deceive Macron. As outlined by Sean Kelly (“PM’s policy is smoke and mirrors”, November 1), Morrison has made a habit of using words to address a political need, and so what he says is not a belief. In other words, what Morrison believes is not what he said. It is an appalling situation to have a PM who is so cavalier in the words he uses and the messages he conveys, without any hint of guilt or contrition when challenged or exposed.

- Ross Butler, Rodd Point

 

 

 

Silly Macron! Had he researched Morrison’s character before signing the submarine deal he would have realised that our PM doesn’t believe that hiding the truth is lying (“An extraordinary political moment that is dangerous for Morrison”, smh.com.au, November 1). The Australian public has known this for years. - Stephen Rayner, Westleigh

Welcome to our life, Macron!
- Cecily Chittick, Wamberal

 

 

 

 

It would be very uncomfortable inside Morrison’s trousers at the moment. As a retired teacher, I have had many years’ experience in reading face language. Watching his narrowed eyes constantly shift sideways as he smirkingly denied accusations of lying to the French President would have led me to give the young Morrison the following advice: “You know that lying now will only undermine people’s trust in everything else you say. Your chances of being elected school captain have been severely lessened, Scott”.

- Bruce Mumford, Moss Vale

   

Morrison is like the stubborn 10-year-old who is always right and has the inability to recognise reason or the reality that he has lied. I am coming to realise that he no longer has the ability to recognise fact from the fictions he creates.

 

- Margaret Heys, Queanbeyan

 

 

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/fraternity-no-duplicity-subs-lies-and-sour-french-grapes-20211101-p594ug.html

 

 

 

 

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Branded a ‘liar’ by the French, Scott Morrison’s slipperiness is now on show for the world to see

 

BY Hugh Riminton

 

His flaws have appeared in Glasgow and Rome, but those who underestimate Morrison are often left clawing at the open air

 

 

Slipperiness is Scott Morrison’s defining characteristic. And it was never more on show than this week as he sold “the Australian Way” on climate to a sceptical crowd in Glasgow, while being openly branded a liar by France over submarines

.

Take the stoush with Emmanuel Macron. When asked if Morrison had lied to him about dumping the $90bn Attack-class submarine contract, the French president said tartly: “I don’t think, I know.”

 

Morrison denied it, before an instant pivot to a baseless claim about the journalists.

 

“You were getting selfies with him.”

No, we weren’t, said an indignant hack.

“I must have been misinformed,” Morrison replied.

All ridiculously trivial, but not quite innocent. When cornered, the Australian prime minister breaks the glass and reaches for distraction.

Remember in March, when under pressure over the culture in parliament house, he suddenly turned on Sky News, warning about “glass houses”.

“Right now, you would be aware that in your own organisation there is a person who had had a complaint made against them for harassment of a woman in a women’s toilet,” thundered Morrison.

Not true, said Sky’s owners at News Corp. The prime minister issued a late night withdrawal. “The emotion of the moment is no excuse,” he said.

Morrison’s next reactions to Macron were also interesting.

“I have a lot of respect for your country,” Macron said, making plain he blamed Morrison specifically for what he contends was a lie. “A lot of respect and friendship for your people.”

 

Morrison’s response was to defend Australia’s honour, citing his own “broad shoulders”.

 

“I’m not going to cop sledging of Australia. I am not going to cop that on behalf of Australians.”

Then, in an extraordinary breach of normal protocols, a personal text message from the French president was selectively leaked to the press.

We now know that two days before the Aukus announcement, Macron texted Morrison to ask: “Should I expect good or bad news for our joint submarine ambitions?”

This is being presented as evidence Macron knew the contract was about to be torn up.

But Morrison’s fuller explanation subverts that reading.

In mid-June, Morrison says he flew to Paris for dinner with Macron to state “candidly … that a conventional diesel-powered submarine was not going to meet Australia’s strategic requirements”.

But whatever he now says he said, what the French plainly heard was merely that there were problems with costs and delays.

On Morrison’s own account, “the French defence system swung into full action”, sending an admiral to Australia to respond “to the issues that I had raised at our dinner”.

Back then, Morrison publicly thanked the French president for “taking a very active role” in resolving the submarine issues.

Morrison’s own account shows French actions consistent with a partner trying to fix issues, rather than one who had been told its services were no longer required.

In essence, Morrison now says “they knew”. Macron says “he lied”. It appears the French knew less than they thought about Australia’s intentions, up to the virtual eve of the Aukus announcement.

 

“I think it’s clear from president macron’s statements yesterday that the level of offence is still very great,” Morrison conceded in a moment of clarity in Glasgow.

 

So Morrison slipped and slid through the French submarine contract until he was ready to announce his nuclear partnership with the US and UK. As he slipped and slid to the prime ministership in 2018, activating a tightly held plan to come through the pack.

He out-energised Bill Shorten to claim victory in 2019, in part by convincing pensioners that Labor’s franking credit reforms would leave them worse off.

The man who carried coal into parliament now has a net zero pamphlet that he believes can win back voters concerned about a warming planet. The electric vehicles which he claimed would destroy the Aussie weekend are now built into his emissions reduction goals.

The man who said cutting emissions would destroy the economy now argues the opposite. As emissions have fallen by 20% since 2005, our economy has grown by 45%, he says, “proving that economic growth is not at odds with emissions reduction”.

And we now have a new moral reason to export coal. We’re helping the world’s poor, he said in Rome.

“Don’t force up the cost,” he begged. “That is only going to hurt the people who can afford it least.”

If slipperiness defines him, it is also his primary political skill.

Franklin D Roosevelt’s biographer Kenneth Davis says the former US president had little time for politicians “who pursued their objectives in uncompromisingly straight lines, men who disdain(ed) cajolery and concealment and misdirection”.

As Turnbull, Dutton and now Macron can attest, those who have underestimated Morrison have been left clawing at the open air. Less chameleon than oiled seal, he has already slipped them by.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/02/branded-a-liar-by-the-french-scott-morrisons-slipperiness-is-now-on-show-for-the-world-to-see

 

See also: https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/38380

 

and: https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/35525 (more than 10,000 reads)

 

and: 

never trust an evangelical with an aussie accent...

 

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lies

I fear that, like myself, poor Scott Morrison suffers from partial hearing loss. He really must. (“Morrison says he won’t cop ‘slurs’ and ‘sledging’ against Australia’“, smh.com.au, November 2). The French president, Monsieur Macron, did not “slur” or “sledge” any Australian, at all, not one bit. His comments were directed primarily at the PM and his government. For Morrison to indicate otherwise, well, he is surely telling a lie, isn’t he?

- Kathleen Molloy, Thornleigh

 

 

Morrison has used the typical “straw man” argument. He has reinterpreted and projected Macron’s comments about him personally as instead being a slur on Australia’s integrity, saying his own shoulders were broad, but he would not cop the sledging of Australia. No, Mr Morrison, Mr Macron was not sledging Australia; he was actually fulsome in his praise of Australia and Australian people in general. He was not casting a slur on Australia’s integrity, he was calling you a liar and casting a slur on your integrity.

- John Slidziunas, Woonona

 

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/prone-to-pique-pm-s-sledge-taunt-inflames-french-fight-20211102-p59572.html

 

This is a typical sociopathic reaction/shift... 

 

 

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SEE: https://johnmenadue.com/in-the-shameful-persecution-of-julian-assange-justice-for-one-is-justice-for-us-all/

France’s senior diplomat in Canberra has suggested that Australia is an untrustworthy partner that can “weaponize” confidential talks, after Macron’s text on the ill-fated submarine contract was leaked to the media.

Ambassador Jean-Pierre Thebault said leaking his president’s text to Australian media was an “unprecedented new low” in the two nations’ long-running row over Canberra’s cancellation of a submarine deal with Paris in favor of an alliance with the US and Britain.

Doing so… sends a very worrying signal for all heads of state: beware, in Australia there will be leaks.

The sharing of President Emmanuel Macron’s correspondence with his Australian counterpart Prime Minister Scott Morrison was done in an apparent bid to discredit the French leader’s recent accusations of Morrison lying to him about the deal.

“What you say in confidence to your partners will be eventually used and weaponized against you one day,” Thebault said in Canberra on Wednesday in an address to Australian media representatives. “You don’t behave like this on personal exchanges of leaders,” he added.

The leaked message apparently showed Macron’s knowledge of the contract being at risk, as he asked whether to “expect good or bad news for our joint submarines ambitions” ahead of the official announcement of its abolishment by Canberra in September.

Defending France’s stance that it had been kept unaware of any possibilities of its partner quitting the deal, Thebault said the two countries’ ministers had met and agreed to a joint statement on the importance of the contract just two weeks before Canberra’s new partnership was announced.

“Do you agree on such a joint communique when there is the slightest doubt on something so massive,” the ambassador suggested.

He accused Australia’s authorities that “the deceit was intentional”. Canberra was just not sure the new deal would go through, the French diplomat implied, saying that Paris was kept “on the back burner” and not made aware of any changes despite “countless opportunities.”

Publicly speaking for the first time since having been recalled as ambassador in September – the result of Canberra pulling out of the deal – the diplomat also questioned “the value of Australia’s signature” in a global context. To rebuild the relationship, the two nations will have to “start from very far away,” he pointed out.

Following Thebault’s speech, Morrison commented by saying, “Claims were made and claims were refuted.” It is time to end the split, he told reporters in the UAE, en route from global meetings. “I don’t think there’s any further profit for anyone in continuing down this path,” he added. Morrison has denied lying previously, insisting at a separate press meeting that he had openly told Macron that conventional submarines offered by France do not meet Australia’s needs.

 

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/539239-france-australia-new-low/

 

 

READ FROM TOP...

 

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As usual Chris Uhlmann manages to finish his pompous article in the SMH with a rightwing polish...:

 

The showdown between Macron and Morrison was set, the only mystery is why the Prime Minister seemed so unprepared for what transpired. The most damaging comments came from Biden, whose declaration that the deal was “clumsy” and “graceless” stoked the story and left Morrison looking isolated.

If France could deliver a submarine as potent as the political strike its President launched on the Australian Prime Minister, then this nation has pulled the wrong rein opting to go nuclear. Alas, it can’t. Morrison made the right call, but his dismount from the deal has been about as successful as a winter retreat from Moscow.

 

Read more: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/how-morrison-was-torn-apart-by-macron-s-napoleonic-zeal-20211109-p59768.html

 

The only mystery? ScoMo is used to fudge... This is specialty. ScoMo would have had to know that "Macron was not going to be happy...". ScoMo was prepared to weather the shitstorm (which he knew was coming) with the line forever used by thieves and politicians: "in the national interest". Repeat: "in the national interest"... And blame Macron for failing to read the secret signals that the sub-deal was going to sink... Then ScoMo had to know his "American friends" were going to help him as well: "clumsy". Bravo, well done to erase the word DECEITFUL. "Morrison made the right call?" Bullshit. He could have at least asked Macron to supply nuclear submarines. A "winter retreat from Moscow?" Bullshit. Napoleon lost 4/5th of his armies in this debacle... Scomo did not even lose his underpants — those he washes regularly with Hypocrisy Washing Powder... His supporters are estatic: stick it to the French is an admirable passion for many loonies.