Comment

Those north Queensland beaks sure know how to dish out justice to anti-coal protesters chaining themselves to cattle grids or concrete drums to hamper workers turning up for fossil fuel duties.

The coronavirus-induced panic that has caused the great run on toilet paper is not confined to the herd instinct of millions of shoppers. Fear of being the first government to preside over the end of 30 years of uninterrupted growth is gripping Scott Morrison and his entire Coalition outfit.

Muslims living in Australia were haunted by Christchurch – and Quebec, and Utøya – long before these names became shorthand for the crimes committed there. Because running alongside the mass killings, quietly, there has been a slow-motion massacre of Muslims living in the West in the years since September 11, 2001, as one hate crime steadily piled upon another.

The government will next week announce the details of a stimulus package it hopes can blunt the effects of COVID-19 on the Australian economy. But long before the first coronavirus case was confirmed in Wuhan, the Australian economy was giving off warning signs. And, for months, the government ignored these gasps and sputters.

Field agents from Wingello in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales bring reports that Schmo turned up in town on a post-bushfire inspection. Only the Rural Fire Service seemed to be aware of his arrival; hence there were no brass bands and drum majorettes to welcome him in the main street. To cheer everyone up the PM brought Grassgate Gussy Taylor with him, yet residents were kept in the dark about their local member’s movements.

It is getting harder by the week to believe a word uttered by the prime minister of Australia. And no one has done more to undermine Scott Morrison’s credibility than the man himself. This harsh judgement is shared not only by his political opponents in the Labor Party but also by all but one of the six crossbenchers in the house of representatives.

The truth, in Scott Morrison’s world, is like light. With the right forces, it can be fractured or bent out of shape. Sometimes it changes of its own accord, as the sun charts a course across the sky. As Immigration minister, he invented the notion of ‘on-water matters’ – which would not be commented on – and changed forever how politicians share information.

It is six years since The Saturday Paper printed its first edition. At the time we said our task was to make sense of Australia. The great joy of this task is that it is never done. That is also its occasional frustration.

When palaeoconservatives get tangled in issues of race inevitably their pants catch on fire. So it was with the High Court decision in Love, Thoms v The Commonwealth – when a majority of the judges stopped Benito Dutton deporting a couple of Aboriginal men who had done time for criminal offences in Australia.

There’s an old saying in politics, ‘Never waste a good crisis.’ And it’s crystal clear Scott Morrison isn’t wasting any moment where he can be seen responding to the threat coronavirus – or COVID-19, as it’s now known – is posing to Australia and the world. It stands in stark contrast with his derelict early response to the bushfire emergency.