Comment

The dazzling Athenian sunshine caught the highlights of Kevin Andrews’ luxuriant crop of Grecian 2000-enhanced hair as he took coffee at a footpath cafe in Skoufa, close to the Greek capital’s embassy district. But hold on, there was an even bigger distraction. Pauline Hanson, that heart-throb of menopausal males from the boondocks, was perched close by. Quite the strange pairing to spot on holiday together in the Mediterranean.

The ghosts of leaders past are haunting the political firmament as climate change, the one issue that played a major role in their demise, flares spectacularly. While Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten ruminate on their contributions to and prescriptions for the nation, fierce unseasonal bushfires are offering a brutal reality check.

The Kurds have been an invaluable ally in the fight against Daesh. For five years, they fought alongside troops from the United States and its allies. In these terms, Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US support for the Kurds in northern Syria can only be seen as a betrayal.

It is a dangerous thing, a government that refuses to govern. So much of the apparatus of governing is dedicated to the appearance of action: doorstops, press conferences, site visits, overseas trips and speeches; committees and estimates hearings; inquiries and royal commissions. It is easy to see all of this general busyness and mistake it for the doing of something. With some political sleight of hand, though, it can easily come to naught.

The Morrison government is scrambling to persuade the nation it really knows what it is on about and how it will achieve it. The drought and a stubbornly sluggish economy aren’t helping. Nor is Morrison’s new best mate, Donald Trump.

White Ribbon was the most visible organisation in Australia dedicated to ending men’s violence against women. Yet its actions repeatedly frustrated the domestic violence sector, survivors and their supporters. Those actions demonstrated a fundamental failure to understand the problem that White Ribbon was meant to be fixing.

The IPCC report is no easy reading. Criticisms are couched, references extensive. What it did not say was that meat is the only culprit. In fact, it says that farming – the way we’ve done it for the past 100 years in particular – is unsustainable.

In America, they’re already apologising. A spokesperson for Fox News said comments broadcast by the network were “disgraceful”. Earlier, a guest had called Greta Thunberg a “mentally ill Swedish child who is being exploited by her parents and by the international left”. In Australia, it doesn’t matter. The Murdoch press ridicules Thunberg’s age and mental health. They express anger at her for telling the truth.

Trump’s bone spurs must be giving him hell. Standing for hours on end to smother Schmo Morrison in effusions at a welcome ceremony, at a press conference, at a state dinner and then at Anthony Pratt’s cardboard factory. Agony for the Radge Orange Bampot, and for everyone else in earshot.

Scott Morrison is back on Australian soil with the ramifications of his seven-day Trumpfest romp still to play out. He returns with an accolade from the United States president still ringing in his ears. No ‘man of steel’, this Aussie leader is a ‘man of titanium’. And in case his compliment wasn’t clear, Trump clarified: ‘Titanium’s much tougher than steel.’