Editorial

A little over three years ago, in front of the full bench of the Federal Court, lawyers for Sussan Ley argued she had no responsibility to protect young people from the catastrophe of climate change. She could freely approve coalmines without considering a duty of care.

Surely this is the end, the rock bottom drunks talk about at their first meeting. For more than 20 years, the Liberal Party has staggered further and further from the political centre, stopping occasionally to bicker with gays or yell at the weather that it isn’t real.

Earlier in the day, Kevin Rudd spent time in a paddock feeding sheep. Politics is rarely subtle. That afternoon, he sat opposite Rove McManus and waited to be asked who he would turn gay for. There are some who see this as the moment campaigning changed in Australia, the point at which the trivial overtook all else and elections were emptied of meaning. It was November 18, 2007.

Lyle Shelton is the crab louse of Australian politics. He’s an itchy little man. In his entire career, the only thing he has won is a campaign not to drink recycled sewage. He finally found a cause more unpopular than himself and it was the consumption of human excrement.

Peter Dutton shrugged as he answered. You could see the political calculation playing across his face. Underneath the studio lights, he looked like a smooth and blinking Chupa Chup.

Whether or not Donald Trump intended to reshape the world order within 100 days is unclear. What he certainly didn’t intend was for his ill-considered actions to expose the vacuousness of his entire administration.

When Peter Dutton links tariffs to national security, he is doing exactly what Donald Trump wants.

So this is it: a choice between a few dollars a week in tax cuts or a couple of cents off petrol for a year, an election fought in a change purse by two men with the charisma of loose coins.

It is almost impossible to imagine a legal system that could fail a person more comprehensively, over a longer period of time, at more levels and in more ways, than the system that failed Brittany Higgins.

There is a tendency, especially after his recent victory, to overstate Trump’s intelligence. The media that dismissed him once as a buffoon is anxious not to miss his genius a second time. He could ride a tricycle into the joint sitting and most outlets would be reluctant to call him a clown.