Comment

The phenomenon of the Matildas clearly caught our political leaders off guard, leading to a series of attempts to clamber on, if not capitalise on, the bandwagon. Their ascendance in the competition launched an auction between the national leaders, with a flurry of offers of financial support for women’s sport.

When Tanya Plibersek was collared on the sidelines of last weekend’s conference, her assessment of how the government sees itself was particularly interesting. She fobbed off criticism that the old party of passionate firebrands from the left had become a conservative shadow of its former self.

What would we not know were it but for brave whistleblowers speaking up? And what do we not know right now because the cost of courage in Australia is too high? These are the questions that keep me awake at night, and they are the reasons the Human Rights Law Centre is this week launching the Whistleblower Project, a new initiative to protect and empower Australian whistleblowers.

It is with mounting despair that I note several mega threats to our planet and to humanity seem to be simultaneously gathering considerable momentum, yet governments and policy authorities are simply ignoring the severity and urgency of the challenges.

For a while, late on Monday afternoon in the house of representatives, you could be forgiven for thinking the Peter Dutton-led opposition had finally cast itself adrift from Scott Morrison.

A man once called the radical King is being transformed into a conservative icon. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr’s message, for so long opposed by American conservatives, is now being used by the same political class to support their ideas and values.

Australia’s growth outlook is more uncertain than ever, with recession drawing closer. The economy expanded just 0.2 per cent in the first three months of this year, and this week New Zealand declared that its economy is officially contracting.

Anthony Albanese is furious the ‘Greens political party’ – as he insists on always calling them – is blocking his signature Housing Australia Future Fund in the senate and he is now raising the prospect of using it as a trigger for an early election.

With the fearmongering tactics from sections of the ‘No’ campaign intensifying, the referendum later this year is becoming a question of courage.

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.