Comment

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.

By 2030, nobody was surprised that the farm machinery sector was holding up. Demand was through the roof from farmers who needed smaller, more flexible harvesters and threshing machines suited for differential seed sizes. Those in the know had seen this shift before when the chemical industry had seamlessly moved away from artificial fertilisers towards more organic supplies.

The prime minister says he didn’t know that Brittany Higgins had accused a colleague of sexually assaulting her. He says he didn’t know until February 15 this year, three days after a media inquiry came into his office. But he knows now. This is the moment when a leader would stand up, take responsibility and then face the questions that need to be answered. Instead Scott Morrison’s only concern, it seems, is to avoid at all costs any of this sticking to him.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has a complicated relationship with boats. We all know he loves stopping them. He even has a trophy on his desk shaped like a boat with “I stopped these” written on it, lest he ever forgets how much he loves stopping boats. But he also likes making boats go faster, it seems. Once the boat is moving, if he hasn’t stopped it already, he hates things that slow down the boat. Or at least that’s the impression hydroxychloroquine spokesperson Craig Kelly got, as evidenced in his resignation letter handed to the PM this week, which read, “Some of my conduct over recent months has not helped the boat go faster.”

 

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.

Bridget McKenzie says the Nationals are “very, very keen to make a positive, progressive contribution to the energy and emissions debate”. All the evidence to hand suggests this is not true.

Being a politician means learning to carefully deliver sentences that have been crafted by experts who know that everything you say will be parsed and dissected. This is why prime ministers employ speechwriters – people adept at reading the warp and weft of social discourse and threading a path for their boss that will offend few and please many. Prime Minister Scott Morrison really should think of hiring such a person.

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.

Eighteen months after publicly reporting her assault, former Liberal staffer Dhanya Mani explains why this week does not represent ‘progress’.