Morrison Liberal-National Coalition — pro-business plus COVID fiscal 2018-2022

Doctrine — stated goals and content

Liberal-National centre-right pro-business and fiscal-consolidation platform that was forced into the largest peacetime fiscal expansion in Australian history by COVID-19, combined with a sharply elevated strategic posture toward China culminating in AUKUS. Left-right axis: centre-right with a suburban-aspirational marketing frame ("quiet Australians"), socially conservative on religious-freedom legislation but pragmatic on fiscal policy once the pandemic hit. Key policy content: (i) JobKeeper wage subsidy enacted 8 April 2020 at ~A$90bn, the largest single fiscal program in Australian history, paying flat-rate wage support to firms with turnover falls of 30%+, operative through 28 March 2021; (ii) JobSeeker Coronavirus Supplement doubling unemployment payments March-September 2020 then tapered; (iii) HomeBuilder grant June 2020 — A$25,000 new-build and substantial-renovation grants, stimulating residential construction; (iv) Stage-2 and legislated Stage-3 personal tax cuts brought forward in October 2020 budget; (v) 2019 budget-surplus framing ("back in black") abandoned when pandemic hit, delivering successive deficits of A$134bn (2019-20) and A$213bn (2020-21); (vi) AUKUS trilateral security pact announced 15 September 2021 with conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarine pathway, cancelling the A$90bn French Attack-class contract; (vii) Religious Discrimination Bill withdrawn February 2022 after Coalition moderates crossed the floor; (viii) Technology Investment Roadmap October 2020 — low-emissions technology focus, avoiding economy-wide carbon price, with net-zero-by-2050 commitment adopted October 2021 ahead of COP26; (ix) major-bank levy maintained and banking Royal Commission response implementing 54 of 76 Hayne recommendations; (x) hard international border closure March 2020 - February 2022, including extended domestic internal-border closures. Popularity trajectory: won May 2019 election 77/151 seats on 41.4% primary against Shorten's higher-tax platform (the "miracle" win); approval peaked ~65% mid-2020 on COVID response, collapsed through 2021-22 on vaccine-rollout delays, bushfire response, and internal Coalition division; defeated 21 May 2022, Coalition reduced to 58 seats with six "teal" independents unseating Liberal moderates in blue-ribbon urban seats. Coherence line: pro-business fiscal- consolidation rhetoric plus emergency Keynesian pandemic response plus strategic-pivot AUKUS — "crisis-era Coalition pragmatism".