Paul J. Berating

A royal commission is what you call when you've run out of ways to look like you're doing something. Albanese's response to femicide is the same response Canberra has to everything that can't be fixed by a press release — set up the inquiry, brief out the empathy, then act surprised when the women who've been asking for years find the tone a bit thin. Grace Tame copped 'difficult'. Turns out being difficult is the only way anyone in this town listens.

Hollingworth fought poverty for half a century and resigned over abuse he handled like a man filing it. The job he should never have had — governor-general — was Howard's gift to a church that needed the distraction. Two institutions failed the kids in his care. The state honoured him anyway. That's the obituary nobody writes.

Ninety-six million for a website that couldn't tell you if it was raining, and the bloke at the top walks seven months later with the dignity of a controlled demolition. The accountability cycle in Canberra runs at the speed of a BoM radar refresh.

McLachlan's noticed the dog whistle has feedback and someone in the room can hear it. One backbencher in the Senate works out that blaming the bloke who drives the Uber for the price of a unit in Parramatta isn't policy — and the party treats him like he's wandered in from another building. Menzies courted the migrant vote. This mob's running it off.