Politics

China’s ‘Wolf Warrior diplomacy’ is proving more than a menacing howl for Australia, and what to do about it seems beyond the gumption of the Morrison government. It is one thing for the prime minister to dismiss a list of grievances from the Chinese embassy in Canberra as ‘unofficial’, but it is an entirely painful reality when they are accompanied by unofficial trade bans and restrictions on about $6 billion of Australia’s yearly exports.

Seventy-five years ago, Australia committed to a rules-based international order. Our continuing commitment to that order is based both on pragmatism – the peace and prosperity it has provided; and on principle – the ‘fair go’ that the rules-based order promises. The problem with continuing to champion that order, however, is that it may not offer a ‘fair go’, but rather entrench privilege.

An inconvenient truth rocked the Morrison government this week when it was finally brought to some account over the long-running robo-debt scandal … Don’t imagine the architect of the scheme, the prime minister himself, doesn’t realise how big a disaster this is. Scott Morrison went to great lengths to create a diversion, knowing the robo-debt story would break this week.

As a remarkable year nears its end, it seems a once-in-a-century opportunity to reflect on the most traumatic event in modern Australian history has been squandered. In 2020, Australians have become more conversant with the ravages of the Spanish flu and the mediaeval plague. But not even Covid-19 could induce public reflection on the pathogens that killed so many Indigenous Australians after the colonisation of this land.

Australia’s political leaders were among the first to declare their faith in America’s democracy when the Biden victory in the presidential election became clear. They realised that what was at stake was the credibility of a nation that for the past 75 years has claimed to be the leader of the ‘free world’.

There’s no doubt the prime minister had picked up on the enormous hurt suffered by businesses during the pandemic, particularly in the tourism sector, but what he had missed was people’s concerns about their health. To that end, older voters gave big swings in hitherto safe non-Labor seats on the Sunshine and Gold coasts.

During senate estimates in the past fortnight, Labor has not squandered any chance to call the government to account. Its senators have seized on the forensic work carried out by the auditor-general and indeed their own ferreting to reveal disturbing extravagance, misguided entitlement and incompetence, if not corruption.

It is always fascinating to watch the cat-and-mouse game that Australian prime ministers play with election dates. Unencumbered by fixed terms, convention dictates that the campaign starts whenever the incumbent believes they are in the best position to win.

A beaming Scott Morrison gave the TV news crews the sort of picture opportunity they really appreciate. Perched behind a machinegun in the turret of a military tank, the prime minister was having a fun ride. The fun, however, didn’t last and the image became an apt metaphor for Morrison’s six days of scheduled campaigning in Queensland.

The hole could surely be seen from Mars: a deficit of $213.7 billion this financial year and projected to fall to $66.9 billion in 2023-24, still massively in the red by previous Australian standards … The sheer size of the numbers suggests to seasoned observers that the government only half believes in the ‘hope’ the treasurer spoke of in his speech – hope that recovery is under way and that ‘Australia is up to the task’.