Comment

Albanese’s choice is between the call of the parrot and the scream of the chainsaw: the rescue of the honey-eating swift parrots from extinction or the ongoing, needless destruction of their forest habitat.

The Labor Party never recovered from the Tampa affair. The episode caught it unprepared and the party has remained that way since. They formulated no meaningful policy in response. They took no position, which in politics is the worst position.

The cost of living is still running too high and the opposition is weaponising every issue it can. As Treasurer Jim Chalmers prepares to deliver the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook statement, he faces a very big question. How he will balance the desire to maintain the long-awaited surplus Labor touted this year as evidence of its sound economic management with the need to help households still struggling with inflation and the highest interest rates in 12 years.

The latest batch of published polls suggest voters are not yet ready to switch to the Dutton-led Coalition. In this context, it is not hard to see why Dutton, who has always been a strident partisan warrior, has given no quarter as he attempts to turn the High Court-directed release of indefinitely detained migrants and refugees into a national security emergency, a shambles and a catastrophe. In this he has the unabashed urging and backing of the Murdoch media.

The year just ending is the worst I can recall for more than half a century. Already there are strong indications the next will be worse. It has been the hottest year on record since global meteorological systems were established in 1873. Increasingly brutal wars between Russia and Ukraine, and Israel and Hamas, and massive conflicts in Africa and border wars in South America are destructive not only to lives and property but to all human values and the whole concept of rational problem-solving. Politics itself is a war zone. No prisoners are taken and the winner takes all. The more existential the crisis, the more trivial and toxic the response.

The proverb first appeared in Latin sometime before 1191. Male ulciscitur dedecus sibi illatum, qui amputat nasum suum (He who cuts off his nose takes poor revenge for a shame inflicted on him). … Most recently, it is a useful description of Labor’s approach to the stage three tax cuts.

Australia is engaged in the most significant economic, industrial and social transformation – the transition to renewable energy. Unfortunately, the opposition, backed by its loyal media comrades, is doing its level best to complicate and undermine this effort with baseless assertions and misrepresentations.

The cage fight that passes for political debate in the Australian parliament is drawing to an unedifying close for the year. The Dutton-led opposition has rushed to exploit every fear and panic, and heads to the summer break convinced it has the Albanese government ready to yield.

New laws have been rushed through parliament with bilateral support but little analysis … This is ‘crisis’ law-making at its worst – reactionary, spurred on by a contrived sense of urgency and inflamed by fearmongering and political opportunism.

The opposition leader does not baulk at using the sort of post-truth politics employed by Donald Trump in the United States, where reality is not the touchstone but political advantage is. Any distortion to stir fears and resentments is utilised.