Comment

We need to talk about fascism, particularly here in Australia. We need, as Australians, to talk about it because the perpetrator of the Christchurch massacre grew up in this country – and the crimes he is being prosecuted for in New Zealand, killing 51 Muslims and injuring 49 others, continue to resonate around the world.

According to the Department of Foreign Affairs “blue book” – given to the Morrison government after the election – the threat of “populism, nationalism and authoritarianism” is only growing in the region. “We need to work hard to respond to the challenges,” the document warns, “enhancing global co-operation and limiting coercive power.” The world it describes is a troubled one. Tensions are rising. Orthodoxies are breaking down.

It has been a long time coming and it has taken the biggest fire front in Australia’s history to do it, but climate change denial has finally lost its political potency. The pressure is now on Scott Morrison to resolve the fierce resistance in his own government’s ranks and respond with policies that persuade voters – thousands of them victims of this week’s inferno – that the federal Liberals and Nationals get it.

What has happened in Yuendumu is an outrage, an injustice, and an event that we must not allow to be swept under the rug … We are hurt. We are angry. We are suffering. We stay strong and we stay together – but we should never again have to be connected by grief like this.

The High Court’s decision to hear George Pell’s appeal against his conviction for five counts of sexually assaulting altar boys was met with dismay by survivors of clergy abuse and their advocates. But lawyers had expected the court would grant leave, given the way it has determined cases of historical child sexual abuse since 1994.

Labor’s campaign was flawed but its policies were right. Its failure came in acknowledging that the country needs to change. More than anything, Australians want a prime minister who covers for their shortcomings – who says not to worry, and that most of you will be okay.

Here we are six months after the federal election and upon swaths of citizens it has dawned that they have bought tickets to a flop. If it’s cringeworthy now, imagine another two-and-a-half years of this clapped-out music-hall routine.

Never has it been more obvious: getting elected is one task, governing is another. While Labor tries to move on from its election loss review, delivered to the executive on Thursday, Scott Morrison is finding that running the country is harder than winning the unwinnable election.

For those who have watched the evolution of public-order policing in Victoria over recent years, the sort of police violence we saw at the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) protests in Melbourne would’ve come as no real surprise.

In the ad, James McGrath says the Voice to Parliament is an attempt to “divide Australia … on the basis of race”. The Queensland senator maintains the lie that the Uluru Statement from the Heart proposes “a special chamber or a special voice”. He says: “We’re all equal, we’re all the same. This is just nuts.” The lie is not much different from the one Malcolm Turnbull told when he first rejected the proposal, or from the line Scott Morrison has run since.