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PM S. Morrison LOSING his COOL

 In Body language, Delivery, Facial expression, Gesturing, Learning from Luminaries, Media, News, Politicians, Q&A, The Winning Voice, What not to do

Consider this. He or she who loses their cool – LOSES.

Leaving aside the value of his policies and views, and scoring Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison against a benchmark of a competent, inspiring, forward-looking, calm-under-pressure leader of state, conveyed through facial expressions, tone of voice, body language and feeling tone- in his 36 minute Network Ten, The Project interview with Waleed Aly last week, I scored Mr. Morrison’s performance as 6.5/10.

The above communication modes of facial expressions etc. reveal aspects of Mr. Morrison’s character and personality. They provide a window into his soul.

Overarching comment

The 6.5/10 score was due to Mr. Morrison – when questions strayed into areas he didn’t want to discuss – repeatedly losing his cool, wanting to control the interview agenda, being prepared to interrupt, speak over, ‘bully’ and accuse Aly, and resort to long-winded rants.

It seemed Morrison wanted to suck the oxygen out of the interview time, and out of Aly’s agenda.

The loss of composure was capped off by a menacing glare Morrison trained on Aly while shaking his hand at the end of the interview.

Here are more analysis points:

– Morrison’s first comments about the Christchurch mosque shootings conveyed genuine emotion and sadness.

– Morrison’s default manner of responding to questions, is to quickly start speaking and trust his think-on-his-feet skills to ‘save’ him and bring him back to an appropriate response.

– The first instance of losing his cool was when Morrison interrupted Aly in his answer to the second question.

Morrison interrupted Aly and was argumentative, in response to Aly’s question, “Does Australia have a problem with Islamaphobia?”

At the 14:40 > 22:00 segment composure was particularly lost through

Morrison interrupting Aly, displaying mocking facial expressions, and obfuscating regarding the Peter Dutton comment and the shadow cabinet report/Andrew Robb comment.

– During the discussion of Asylum seekers, Morrison’s frustration was evident through interruptions, warnings to Aly, through refusing give a specific answer and through accusing Aly of sugar-coating an issue.

– Near the end the interview Morrison’s regained his composure and delivered a heart-felt message in describing the prompt steps he took directly after the mosque shootings, and when describing his vision for the future.

– To observe Morrison’s menacing glare while shaking Aly’s hand, stop the clip precisely at the 35:35 minute mark.


p.s. On 27 March, on Network Ten’s The Project, Mr Aly interviewed New Zealand Prime Minster, Jacinda Ardern. The words that come to mind in describing Ardern (which often come to mind when hearing her speak) were genuine, unaffected, unfiltered, thoughtful. She is ‘all of one piece’. That is, there was congruency between her words, voice, facial expression, body language and feeling tone.

Here is a LINK to the entire show of The Project. Aly’s interview with Ardern begins at the 34;50 minute point of the show.

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