So it’s goodbye to Scott Morrison and goodbye to Jen-and-the-girls. On Tuesday, the former prime minister’s valedictory address weighed in at 5482 words, three times the normal allowed limit for parliamentary speeches and, in our times, matched for length only by the likes of Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.

Morrison gave a generous half-hour to acknowledging people who had helped in his political life, from his constituents to his pastor, before tearfully thanking his family. “OK, that’s the emotional stuff done,” he concluded. “You’re not used to seeing that side of me.”

Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison with his mother Marion, wife Jenny and daughters Lily and Abbey, after his valedictory speech at Parliament House on Tuesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Oh, but we were, even up to the last gasp of his government in the ABC’s Nemesis. When Morrison had to summon a tear, he invoked Jen-and-the-girls. Of course it was genuine. Whatever else he was or wasn’t, Morrison was our most openly uxorious prime minister.

It was also a technique taught to young actors at NIDA: when you need to show a certain emotion, search your own heart. We remember that when Morrison had been in Hawaii during the 2019 bushfires, it had been to give a break to Jen-and-the-girls. A human shield is always most effective when it’s sincerely held.

The Test cricketer David Warner, who resigned a month before Morrison, also wheeled out his daughters. His affection was clear, disarming critics and serving as a reminder that much of the public abuse he suffered was in his family’s hearing. Morrison’s and Warner’s retirements were well-executed examples of blending true emotions with a desired outcome.

Morrison complained, in Nemesis and elsewhere, that critics of his government made it too personal. But personalising the prime ministership was his initiative and his trademark. Issuing so many personal acknowledgements in his farewell, making it “not about me” (except it was) revealed as much about the speaker as about the audience’s supposed appetite for the personal.

Prime ministers have seldom if ever used the floor of parliament to thank the staff of the Lodge in language like, “you provided a space for Jen, Abbey, Lily, Buddy, Charlie and I [sic] to be a family”. Sir Robert Menzies didn’t even mention Dame Pattie in his last public outing except to remark that she agreed with his decision to retire. It’s impossible to picture Malcolm Fraser giving five quavering minutes to Tamie-and-the-kids. His tears were invoked by losing an election.

Bob Hawke, who knew how to exploit the personal in politics, cried early in his prime ministerial career about his shortcomings as a father, but by his final parliamentary speech, in 1991, he thanked staff and colleagues but when he said, “I have no hesitation in declaring my love” for someone, it was not Hazel (or Blanche) but Kim Beazley.