Comment

So this is it: the open casket of conservative politics, a coffin of thought in which John Howard and Tony Abbott are nestled alongside Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson. The group calls itself the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. It is a global collective of anti-globalists, funded by a Dubai-based investment vehicle and a British billionaire.

In less than two weeks the new National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) will be officially in operation – the long-awaited answer to a defining issue of the last federal election.

So much for respect and reconciliation in the national capital. As parliament returned for the final two weeks before the long winter break, it was more bare-knuckle combat with no one wanting to take prisoners.

Labor announced its desire to host a United Nations climate conference in the lead-up to the 2022 election. Officially called the Conference of the Parties, the UN describes its COPs as ‘the biggest and most important annual climate-related conferences on the planet’.

When justice and politics collide, politics usually prevails. So it is in the case of Brittany Higgins versus Bruce Lehrmann.

To Peta Credlin, there is little that separates Winston Churchill and Ben Roberts-Smith. Both made difficult decisions and lived with their consequences. To her, Roberts-Smith is a brave and rugged man, a soldier’s soldier, “a hero, even if very possibly a flawed one, whose excesses, if any, are understandable in the cauldron of war”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s speech in Singapore last week deserves more attention. Not only was it his first major foreign policy statement on the global stage, it was a profound and nuanced expression of the challenges Australia faces in balancing diplomacy with its national interests and security in a reconfigured world order.

The economy roared back into view as the major focus of contention this week, with some weird developments adding extra drama to the pain and usual blame game that happens when the going gets really tough for millions of Australians. The pain came with the Reserve Bank of Australia continuing its aggressive round of interest rate hikes. The weird came with the nation’s biggest business and industry groups jumping at shadows.

Labor’s litany of recent political decisions continue to invalidate the promise of the Voice. Despite all it says about ‘closing the gap’, ‘reconciliation’ and ‘better outcomes being achieved when Indigenous people have input on the decisions that affect them’, there is not yet any proof this Labor government is curbing its contempt, no glimpses that it can in fact be cured.

Bridget Archer has a modest proposal. The Liberal Party and the Nationals should dissolve their coalition agreement and formulate individual policies while in opposition. She can see her own party’s drift from relevance. She can see the way Peter Dutton has quickly given up the values she thought were inherent.