Law & Crime

The Morrison government resembles a sinking ship in one of those pirate movies where practically everything, including the cannons, is thrown overboard in an attempt to stay afloat. And there has been a good deal of ballast unloaded in this sitting fortnight of parliament.

All of a sudden, the Morrison government is looking very vulnerable. And the prime minister knows it. Like all governments staggering towards the political abyss, it is not only events beyond their control at play but also, more importantly, their misreading of what needs to be done.

We are now two years on from the massacre of 51 Muslims in Christchurch, a terrorist attack perpetrated by an Australian man. And once again the responsibility has fallen on members of the community who were targeted to remind Australia that this horrific incident occurred and is still to be reckoned with.

Key ministers in the political line of fire over the past two weeks will be missing in action when parliament resumes on Monday. The Morrison government, currently being held together by gum and string, is in full strategic retreat in the hope it can brazen out the crisis. But you can’t sideline an attorney-general and a defence minister on indefinite leave and it not become an obvious admission of wilful impotence and avoidance of parliamentary scrutiny.

The Online Safety Bill was introduced by the Morrison government last month with much fanfare about its mission to improve and promote the online safety of Australians. A lot of analysis of the bill has focused on its attempt to minimise harm to children online and to restrict the sharing of non-consensual images across digital platforms. The bill aims to do this by providing several new powers to the eSafety Commissioner, an office that was established in 2015.

Media commentators were quick to attack mention of a widely read self-help book in the dossier of Christian Porter's accuser. But the science of trauma is complicated, and we lack the nuance needed to understand it or its treatments.

It took one week for Australia’s first law officer, Christian Porter, to come out of hiding. In those seven days, he and his prime minister did everything to minimise the grave allegations of a violent historic rape. Porter has issued vehement denials and attempted the demolition of the claims against him. A dark cloud still enshrouds the government of the nation.

Craig Kelly’s fulsome praise of Scott Morrison as Kelly quit the Liberal Party this week was akin to the Mafia sending roses to its next victim. Kelly said he sincerely hoped Morrison would ‘go on to be one of Australia’s greatest and longest-serving prime ministers’. Make no mistake, though, the departure to the crossbench of the outspoken salesman of Covid-19 snake oil remedies is a sickening blow to the Morrison government’s stability and authority.

As Queensland reels from the deaths of a number of innocent people as a result of car theft by teenagers in recent weeks, community members are, understandably, desperately seeking answers to how such needless deaths can be prevented. But the Queensland Liberal National Party and the Queensland Police Service have successfully used the community anger and grief associated with the recent tragic road incidents to once again push their antiquated ideas on to the government.

When bad news is dominating the headlines, the best solution for a prime minister is to eclipse it with good news. How fortunate then for Scott Morrison that he was able to finally announce on Tuesday that the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine had been approved for rollout in Australia.