It is of course usually impossible to predict just how a government is likely to perform one year to the next. However, this government given its form of almost 7 years has considerable form to back any forecasts.

But pathetic as they have been, one would think that our government could at least tidy up their mess just a little.

But no. Take a look at this carry over mess from 2019: The baggage they carry.

1 The secret holiday of the Prime Minister has revealed a soft spot in the belly of a man who never stops talking. Marketing men are normally full of ideas. You would think that a marketing man who is also a politician would be overflowing with them, but such is not the case.

When you look at the nation’s mounting problems you realise that 2020 is going to be a hard slog.

If there is one thing that the government is good at it is the art of doing nothing, and if you look at the economy, climate change, stimulus, constitutional recognition etc it becomes clear how little is being done with ministers completely unqualified for the job.

Other than negative thoughts, Scott Morrison isn’t a deep thinker. I think people are coming to realise that.

On the subject of climate change he has talked himself into an ambush of his own making. It has become the major issue of our time. With fires across our nation people have become genuinely scared of what is happening to our climate.

Now is the time for the Prime Minister to confront those who would, as Malcolm Turnbull puts it, bring the government down and show a bit of leadership.

Early this year he must positively respond to the public’s concern about our efforts on climate change.

Now that everyone knows that his comments about reaching our Paris targets in a canter are just fraudulent talk; that the only way we would do so is with carry over credits, which would make up half of our commitment.

The International Energy Commission who aren’t a group of pot smoking lefties are now saying that we are on track for 2.7c to 3.5c.

In other words the public now knows that Morrison intended cheating, that Australia wasn’t pulling its weight. Now he needs to explain why and what he intends doing about it.

The people are fed up with this decades long assault on the science and now that we are starting to feel the heat of its findings conservatives are now finding themselves obliged to say what their intentions are.

Angus Taylor should be removed from the portfolio before the end of January.

This cannot continue into 2020:

“Heads up re grasslands. Minister keen to see [if] he can accommodate Angus Taylor’s requests,” the note says. “Want a how to for Minister in event he wished to amend or delete thresholds.”

The “thresholds” he refers to are definitions of how much native grass has to be present for it to be protected under federal law.

A spokesman for Taylor said he “has never asked Mr Frydenberg to change laws governing the clearing of native grasslands”.

2 What ever happened to that investigation into the doings of Angus? It was going to be cleared up before Christmas but it never happened.

3 One of the many criticisms coming out of an interview with Martin Parkinson, former head of the Department of Prime Ministers by Katherine Murphy, was this:

“Parkinson is scathing about the Greens’ decision to vote down Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme in 2009 – admitting to a “visceral dislike” of the minor party – and believes Tony Abbott as incoming prime minister in 2013 had political debts, which meant he was obliged to get rid of anything to do with climate change.

That included Parkinson, who was then Treasury secretary but was formerly head of the climate change department that developed the Rudd emissions trading scheme, which was in turn based on work he’d done on the Shergold review under the Howard government, at a point where there was a major-party consensus on the best way to address climate change.“

Another observation was this from Paddy Manning in The Monthly: 

“… the ANU Australian Election Study revealed trust in government had sunk to an all-time low, with 75 per cent of people agreeing that “people in government look after themselves”. Crikey’s Bernard Keane argued [$] that it showed Australia’s political class was “no longer fit for purpose”. The Australia Institute’s chief economist, Richard Dennis, put a fine point on it last week, tweeting that “Morrison’s denial re the need to do more to fight bushfires is consistent with his denial of the need to stimulate the economy, reduce emissions or fight corruption in Canberra. His government isn’t just post-truth, it’s post governing.”

4 Do you recall in mid December former fire chiefs Greg Mullins, from NSW, and Lee Johnson, from Queensland, called for a national summit on how the country should prepare for and resource bushfire emergencies in a changed climate?

Well, so disappointed were they with the government’s response that they have decided to go it alone.

One of the group’s leaders, Greg Mullins, had this to say:

“What we feel is that there’s just still this denial of the problem and where we have denial of the problem, there’s not going to be any action,” he said.

“So we’ll go it alone. We’ll arrange a national summit that will look at building standards, fuel management practices, response capability and national coordination arrangements.

“We’ll invite the prime minister and we hope that he comes too.”

Be warned. Still on climate and the Prime Ministers cunning creation of yet another deception:

“Our greenhouse gas records have been altered to show that emissions were significantly higher than previously believed for the years when Labor was in power, and no longer rise each year since the Coalition repealed the carbon price.”

Most of the revisions are due to a change in how the amount of carbon dioxide released from or absorbed by soil in grazing land is estimated.

Are they legitimate? Yes and no. Some experts said they were an improvement while others said they warranted further examination because of the way they fitted into the coalitions narrative.

One thing is for certain: It smacks at yet further manipulation of climate heating figures and smoke and mirrors politics. You will hear the Prime Minister shouting the revised figures as absolute.

This is but part one of my post on the luggage the government carries with it into 2020. And that’s before they think of any new ideas that might further the common good!

Part two will be published on Wednesday.