Comment

The shorthand title was the trade union royal commission – and the highest-profile targets were a former Labor prime minister, Julia Gillard, and the then Labor leader, Bill Shorten. And everybody knew it. Undaunted by the howls of foul play from the opposition and the criticism of commentators, then Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott had high praise for the man he hand-picked for the job six years ago, former High Court judge Dyson Heydon.

In politics, some things are accidental. Some only start that way. Perhaps when they began designing JobKeeper, the government couldn’t remember what casual work entailed. Perhaps they simply forgot there were migrants here on temporary visas. It is only a million or so people between the two groups.

It took a carefully orchestrated sting lasting 12 months to rid the Australian Labor Party of a strongman few could tolerate any longer. But the fall of factional warlord Adem Somyurek has ramifications well beyond the borders of his Victorian fiefdom. Somyurek made sure of that himself when he boasted in secret recordings that his influence went to the top of the Labor Party in Canberra.

The morphing of a campaign focused on policing, justice and structural disadvantage into a culture war over statues, movies and TV isn’t an accident. It’s a deliberate attempt by conservatives to shift this debate onto terrain where they are more comfortable fighting. None of the demands raised by organisers of the Black Lives Matter rallies related to renaming federal electorates, felling statues or cleansing Netflix’s library of blackface material.

It could be made no clearer that Australia needs a formal process of truth-telling than when the prime minister says “there was no slavery” in this country. Is it possible that he does not know? Could he truly be ignorant to the legacy of blackbirding, to the fact that Aboriginal people were forced into indentured servitude well into the 20th century? If we respect our history, it is time to tell the truth. But respect for history involves knowing what happened.

There’s nothing like the prospect of voters about to mark their ballot papers to focus the minds of politicians. And as parliament resumed this week, the spectre of the Eden-Monaro byelection hung over the place, jolting it out of its brief coronavirus togetherness. Make no mistake: even though the byelection in three weeks’ time will not weaken the government’s numbers on the floor of the house if it loses, there is a strong view that a Liberal win will reinforce Scott Morrison’s druthers to go to a general election early. And you don’t have to look very far to find the reasons why.

As Black, Brown, Indigenous people and allies in the United States and across the world collectively rise up to end systemic racism and violent police practices, it was necessary for us here in Australia to also rise.

It’s my face, man.
I didn’t do anything serious, man.
Please.
Please.
Please, I can’t breathe.

As if Scott Morrison hasn’t got enough on his plate, now he has been dragged into the quagmire of Donald Trump’s increasingly ugly campaign to cling to office. The invitation to attend the September summit of G7 world leaders in the United States would normally be a feather in the cap for an Australian prime minister. Now it only complicates Australia’s interests at home and abroad.

It’s easy to avoid a hard question by simply saying the government ‘should’ provide more money to the universities. But there’s a long list of things the Morrison government should do: extend the JobKeeper payment to casuals and temporary residents; permanently boost unemployment benefits; provide support to the arts and entertainment industry; introduce a carbon price. And avoiding hard questions, by focusing on what ‘should’ happen, isn’t going to spare the academics in the vice-chancellors’ firing lines. So, what can be done?