Editorial

According to Julie Bishop, she didn’t lobby for Greensill Capital. She did call Josh Frydenberg while he was treasurer, but that was only to set up a briefing. She did introduce the company’s founder to Mathias Cormann on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, too, but she promises she didn’t make any representations.

Eleven years ago today, the first issue of The Saturday Paper arrived on front lawns, as small and pale as a duckling. Anthony Albanese was shadow minister for transport and Peter Dutton was underperforming in health. They weren’t much and they still aren’t.

Almost two years ago, Catherine Holmes wrote to the attorney-general asking for a one-week extension on the reporting deadline for the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme.

Don Farrell is a political animal. By some counts, he controls the preselection of every seat in South Australia. He’s a right-winger, a product of the conservative shoppies union. In 2012 he beat Penny Wong for the top spot on the Senate ticket, although he switched with her when he realised the grubbiness of his overreach.

Donald Trump does not delegate the way ordinary presidents do. He is not interested in briefings. He makes decisions without thinking deeply, sometimes without thinking at all. His announcements, as on Gaza this week, are impulsive, unstructured and entirely his own.

Subtlety does not interest Peter Dutton. He is bald in everything he does. When he appointed Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to the new role of shadow minister for government efficiency, the message was very plain: whatever cuts he plans to make to government services, they will be made in aid of a greater culture war.

Jewish leaders warned about this anti-Semitism before the cars were burnt and the houses daubed with paint. They talked about children being afraid on trains and of being refused service in stores. They reminded politicians that it had all happened before. This week, the world’s richest man gave a Nazi salute at the inauguration of the United States president. He was cheered by the crowd and so did it again. The old and warned-of hatred was ascendant.

Sometimes right at the end is when you finally hear the truth. In his last address as president, halting and looking ever more like the eagle on his country’s seal, Joe Biden warned of the obscene wealth that is corrupting America.

You can picture the staffer who thought of this, some slippery little Tarocash chancer. It would have been pitched as the perfect story for the quiet weeks of January, a chance to capture the news cycle for a day or two, to get ready for the annual race-baiting of Australia Day. It is the budget line equivalent of a Chinese-made flag.

It is not unusual for opposition leaders to perform better than they should in the polls. It’s a gentle way for voters to register their dissatisfaction. The surprise is that it’s true even for Peter Dutton.