Comment

Who else but that old master of political imagery Paul Keating could sum it all up so colourfully? The Australian economy is stagnant, and he says the Morrison government can’t do anything about it because the Liberal Party has a ‘surplus virus’ in its bloodstream. The former treasurer and prime minister, credited as a great economic reformer, says ‘the economy is … like the car idling at the lights and waiting for the lights to turn green to take off again’.

Last year, London’s 200-year-old National Gallery acquired a self-portrait by the Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi in a bid to improve the gender balance of its 2300-work permanent collection. The acquisition lifted the number of paintings by women on the gallery’s walls to 26. To say women are underrepresented in the visual art world is to state the obvious. Unpicking how and why we have ended up here, though, is less straightforward.

Perhaps a better question is why is the Energy minister writing to a lord mayor about her air travel? Is this the state of climate policy in Australia – a schoolboy snipe about planes, using grotesquely distorted figures? You might ask where he gets the time, except it is obvious: he isn’t doing anything else. His portfolio is a joke to him, and his days are empty of responsibility. The climate changes without Angus Taylor.

A citizen’s right to know should be a motherhood statement in our liberal democracy, but too much vested interest gets in the way. Most essentially, the pursuit of power – and the holding on to it – is the primal force distorting the way our Commonwealth operates. Ideally those in power are there to serve the public interest; however, the nation’s largest mainstream media companies are accusing governments – particularly the federal government – of treating voters with contempt by hiding what they are really up to most of the time.

My beautiful daughter had many plans in her life, many dreams like young people everywhere. One of her dreams was to see peace between Israel and Palestine in her lifetime. Although that is no longer possible for Aiia, I can honour her dream in a different way. One of my duties in returning to Australia is to be present at the launch of the Aiia Maasarwe Memorial Medical Fellowship program.

When I heard there was going to be another family law inquiry, I couldn’t believe it. After so much loss, so many hearings and so many experts warning, again and again, that the family law system is not safe for children. Instead of urgent action, we have yet another inquiry.

No one saw it coming, though the signs were there. They stacked up quietly, covered only on the business pages and the financial cable news shows with their meagre viewerships. Mortgage lenders filing for bankruptcy; house prices beginning to slip. Then, everything went quickly. And when Lehman Brothers collapsed on September 15, 2008 – bloated with debt – the firm dragged the sharemarket down with it.

For Scott Morrison, God obviously votes Liberal – that’s how he explains his ‘miraculous’ win in May. His mother-in-law confirmed on election night the family had all been praying for the result they got. On Tuesday, at the National Prayer Breakfast in Parliament House, the prime minister told the gathered faithful, which included Anthony Albanese, ‘The only prayers that you can be assured are never answered are the ones that are never prayed.’

In the flood of disclosures that followed revelations about Harvey Weinstein’s decades-long abuse of women, there was hope for change and reform. Hope that individuals and institutions would finally be held accountable for their role in perpetuating sexual violence, and that attitudes and behaviours could genuinely be reformed. This week marks two years since the Me Too hashtag went viral on Twitter.

At best, larrikinism is a cover for the worst aspects of the Australian character. It excuses poor behaviour and indulges second-rate talent. It is a particular kind of unseriousness that avoids difficult questions and laughs at those who try to ask them.