Editorial
Says it all...

The government Scott Morrison leads has achieved less in three terms than perhaps any other in Australian history. What it has accomplished has largely made the country worse.

The remarkable fact about Anthony Albanese is that until about six years ago he never thought he would be prime minister. This may not seem surprising, but it marks him as different to his predecessors. Possibly, it makes him more normal.

By now it is obvious that people in detention are props to Scott Morrison. They are not human to him. They represent only voters’ fears.

The story of Scott Morrison’s life is of events almost catching up with him. His career has been spent a few steps in front of calamity. This election is the first time his actions have pulled up parallel with his intentions. Morrison is in the find out phase.

It’s not wrong to call it the greatest failure of Australian foreign policy since Vietnam or even since World War II. The decision of Solomon Islands to sign a security pact with China was not inevitable. It was the outcome of a decade of neglect and indifference.

Scott Morrison will effectively dump his commitment to establish an integrity commission, which he had promised to deliver before this election: “I am not going to introduce a kangaroo court. I am not going to introduce a policy that I don’t think is in the nation’s best interests …”

Scott Morrison always framed it as a kind of moral vanity. Any justness was a threat to our borders. The slightest decency would undo the system he had built to stop the boats. In private, he said there could be no gap for the light to get through. He talked about indulgence. He presented what he was doing to refugees as difficult and right.