On Friday at 1.02pm, Australians were forced to endure a depressingly familiar sight: an MP emerged from a secret party meeting in Canberra to announce that the nation had a new prime minister.
Despite being the preferred Liberal leader of fewer than 10 per cent of Australians, Scott Morrison, a 50-year-old staunch conservative and evangelical Christian, had won a party-room ballot to replace Malcolm Turnbull, a 63-year-old former investment banker and self-made millionaire. A survey in April found that almost half of Australians had never heard of Mr Morrison, who has just become the sixth prime minister in eight years.
“Who’s Next?” asked the front page of the Northern Territory News.
“It’s…