Comment

The resigning shadow minister for Indigenous Australians and shadow attorney-general, Julian Leeser, did something very rare in Australian politics this week: he quit the frontbench not to launch a challenge against the party leader but rather to undermine him on a point of deeply held principle.

Recently, speaking at a school, I asked the teachers to imagine how they would feel telling children in the future that in 2023 Australia voted ‘No’ at the Voice referendum. I asked them to imagine how it would feel and it brought me to tears.

Peter Dutton knew before he called his colleagues to Canberra that he would oppose the Voice. The party room meeting was a stunt, like almost everything else in his career.

What happened in Aston is simple … The voters of Aston endorsed the positive agenda of the Albanese government against the vagueness and negativity of the Dutton strategy. Mary Doyle achieved a historic win in what the Liberals had basically taken for granted as a traditional and ‘safe’ Liberal seat.

By midweek it was obvious Peter Dutton wasn’t looking for a way to reconnect with the broader electorate, which is clearly what is needed. On the very morning Newspoll published a consolidated survey over three months of majority voter support across a majority of states for a constitutional Voice to Parliament, the Liberals spurned its findings.

Even as Stephen Smith paid a concerned visit to Julian Assange in Belmarsh prison this week, the new high commissioner to Britain said firmly that Australia was not ‘lobbying for a particular outcome’. Concerned Australians might ask, ‘Why the hell not?’

Tony Abbott has now made his slithering, onion-skinned contribution to the “No” case for the Voice to Parliament. It is useful in as much as it synthesises the 12 key arguments against the Voice.

The global drift towards a recession with entrenched inflation was quite enough for central banks and governments to grapple with. Now add to that concerns about the stability of the financial system.

Peter Dutton faces his first real test at the ballot box as Liberal leader in the Aston byelection. He is bracing for the worst while hoping he is saved by the century-long precedent of oppositions never losing seats to governments in these contests.

The climate wars are far from over. They will not be over until the fossil fuel industry stops waging them. While their progress has been slowed in recent years, the relentless bombardment of our future by the coal and gas industries continues unabated.