Comment

Some have tried to suggest Scott Morrison has turned away from the fearful “negative globalism” mindset that shaped his foreign policy while Donald Trump was in office. But the Australian prime minister arrives in Britain for this weekend’s G7 meeting very much a man whose first instinct remains to turn inward in a world that is reopening.

Electing a political representative is neither a power lightly given nor one that should be casually accepted. Yet too often the personal indulgences of politicians are overlooked. A combination of apathy and lethargy seemingly dictates our lack of response to such leadership failures. As such, it is understandable so few politicians even bother pretending to care for the needs of their electorate. Every now and then though, a politician remembers their duty. Driven by a sense of purpose, or perhaps a deep-seated respect for public office, they stand up and make the moral choice: they trawl through the tweets of ABC journalists to see what they’ve liked or retweeted.

This weekend, Scott Morrison would be hoping pictures of him rubbing shoulders with United States President Joe Biden and the world’s major democratic leaders at the G7 summit in Britain would speak volumes about his importance and worth to Australian voters. But he will be vying for screen time with the heart-wrenching pictures of two distressed children kissing before they are separated so that the younger of them might be evacuated to mainland Australia, an emergency caused by a failure of medical treatment.

In Franz Kafka’s book The Trial the accused, Josef K, manages to arouse the court’s anger by loudly complaining about the absurdity of the proceedings and the accusation itself, if he could only understand it. The book is alternatively macabre and comical – much like the Commonwealth’s case against our own K, Witness K, and his former lawyer, Bernard Collaery.

Few gestures could better symbolise Australia’s capricious, feckless and ultimately pointless war in Afghanistan than the decision to close our embassy there with three days’ notice. If there were one, it would be the callousness of abandoning the many hundreds of Afghans who have worked with Australia in the country – and who now face the likely and murderous repercussions of the Taliban we failed to defeat.

Remember that sound you heard on Wednesday, the one the seismologists registered, which startled flocks of birds into flight and shattered spectacles and wine glasses? That was Melbourne. That was five million people cursing aloud when they were told that lockdown would be extended for another week.

The latest outbreak shows only one person needs to catch the bug in hotel quarantine in Adelaide, bring it unwittingly into Melbourne and carry on with a very active life in the community across several suburbs.

It’s been almost 20 years since I wrote “Bell’s Theorem”, an essay about Aboriginal art and the Western systems that make it a white business. The essay finished with a simple observation: ‘There is no hope.’

You could call it many things but the kindest is probably incompetence. Melbourne is once again in lockdown because of incompetence. Lying, Scott Morrison says: “Our best defence is the steadfast resilience of the Australian people.” He says the country will get through this outbreak by working together and staying focused on the problem, without mentioning that the problem is his handling of the vaccine rollout.

During the height of Melbourne’s lockdown last year, many conservative commentators argued we were sacrificing our economy to protect the elderly, who would inevitably just die anyway. The federal government, it seems, has taken up the call for geronticide, even as the economy rebounds. It remains firmly committed to a vaccination strategy that’s been more of a vibe than a rollout, with confusing messaging around who qualifies, when they qualify and why they should avoid AstraZeneca even if they do qualify.