Editorial

This is not like other hatreds. It is ancient and particular. It is sly. It has its own tropes and symbols. For centuries it has contorted into different justifications, but it has always been the same.

The man who sets Australia’s defence policy is an alcoholic former Fox News commentator who is known for his gross financial mismanagement and on at least one occasion paid a settlement to a woman he was accused of raping.

Bruce Lehrmann is a liar. For years now, he has lied about the night he raped Brittany Higgins. He has made a small industry from this lie. He has sold it to television networks, in exchange for cocaine and sex. He has laundered it in the Murdoch press, where he has been invited to mock his victim and her husband.

You can say this about Barnaby Joyce: it took him eating dinner in Pauline Hanson’s parliamentary office to realise how much he resembles a steak cooked on an open sandwich press. What the man lacks in integrity, he makes up for in shallow symbolism: the cow was reared by Gina Rinehart.

A little over a week ago, Linda Reynolds gave her first interview since winning her defamation case against Brittany Higgins. She gave it to Janet Albrechtsen, the right-wing columnist whose texts and phone calls infected the Sofronoff inquiry and to whom Reynolds had earlier leaked confidential details of Higgins’s Commonwealth settlement.

Sussan Ley says she’s not worried about upsetting “people in Paris”. It’s a neat way of explaining how little she understands the Paris Agreement, a failure of comprehension so great she seems to believe it’s a treaty with France. The misapprehension captures the cow-eyed stupidity of the Liberal Party’s position on climate change and of the people who argued for it.

Late last week, Pauline Hanson was a guest at Donald Trump’s Halloween party. She went as herself.

Christopher Pyne was still a cabinet minister when he met with EY to discuss taking a job with the consultancy. There was no confusion about the purpose of the meeting.

Six years ago, while he was still opposition leader, Anthony Albanese addressed the Australian Republic Movement at a dinner in the King’s Hall of Old Parliament House. You can find the speech tucked away on his website, in the same way you can read Prince Andrew’s emails.

Imagine that a young woman is raped in your office. You are a minister and she is the most junior member of your staff. In the footage you see later, she is too drunk to put on her shoes. She walks barefoot through the parliament with her colleague, who you also employ.