Politics

The governor of the Reserve Bank, Michele Bullock, was a little too frank for the treasurer this week, when she mentioned the prospect of a recession after the RBA’s Monetary Policy Board raised interest rates for the second consecutive month.

Not since Australian police snatched the Soviet defector Evdokia Petrov from the clutches of Russian agents at Darwin airport 72 years ago has Canberra so boldly interfered with the designs of a regime it sees as cruelly oppressive, particularly to its female compatriots.

Australia needs a mature, balanced debate on immigration and it needs it as an urgent priority. Unfortunately, it is a policy area too easily abused by political opportunism, misinformation and emotion. Recent public discourse has been riddled with exaggerated statements seeking to create fear and alarm.

It’s a timely visit for Mark Carney in Canberra, where the Canadian prime minister had fresh evidence for his contention that the old-world order is not coming back. Anthony Albanese agrees with his counterpart’s view that middle powers like ours need to actively pursue complementary strategies to advance their security and prosperity.

‘When the dogs are at your throat,’ Paul Keating would tell journalists, ‘you get a chunk of red meat and you throw it as hard as you can in the opposite direction.’ It works every time, he would chuckle. The media pack chases the lure, momentarily distracted from a story that was causing discomfort to its subject. Last Tuesday, Anthony Albanese went for the projectile.

As a former leader of the Liberals, I am very sad to write in these terms, but I fear the party is in its final days or, at the very least, will not govern again in the foreseeable future.

As a former political staffer and an economist, there are two questions I hear a lot. One is, why do governments give so much of our gas away free? The other is, should the “teals” form a political party?

Who would have thought that the coup that dispatched Sussan Ley in favour of Angus Taylor as Liberal leader may have saved the country from a toxic debate on a return to a version of the White Australia policy and a dangerous undermining of the migration program that is an essential part of the nation’s prosperity.

Stephen Hawking once said the history of the universe depends on the question you ask. So, what questions put Donald Trump in the White House twice or made Pauline Hanson the fastest rising politician in Australia?

Since the last election, Australia has witnessed the biggest political on-again, off-again break-up of the 21st century. The slow, messy unravelling – and partial restitching – of the Coalition has dominated headlines, engaged television panels and consumed the press gallery’s attention.