In the words of The Monthly, If the name Milo Yiannopoulos means nothing to you, congratulations on being a normal, well-adjusted person. Yiannopoulos is someone we all aspire to be the complete opposite of. He was until very recently, an alt-right figurehead and said all the ‘right’ things. According to The Guardian he did a fine line in Islamophobia, misogyny, transphobia or harassment. Out Magazine, (which takes pride in its LGBTI heritage) called him a ‘super villain’. Recently, The Monthly reported:

Here in Australia, Yiannopoulos has many fans on the right. Andrew Bolt called him “fabulous” in one of his multiple appearances on The Bolt Report. Bolt’s Herald Sun colleague Rita Panahi thinks Yiannopoulos is “razor sharp, insightful and funny”. Former Liberal MP Ross Cameron regards him as “an ancient form of genius”. Writing in the Spectator, Daisy Cousens described him as an “intelligent, charismatic, witty, stylish, and unbearably handsome powerhouse of a man”.

However, it seems that even the alt-right has boundaries. A YouTube video recently came out (pun intended – Yiannopoulos is gay) where he seemed to endorse intimate relations between older men and boys. He lost his job as a Senior Editor on the Breitbart (extremely conservative) news website, a book deal and some speaking engagements. Let’s give credit where it is due, those who severed connections with a person who seemed to endorse paedophilia did the right thing. However, it also brings into question why hate speech against religions, gender and those who have a different sexual orientation is permitted by the same organisations – as they are all just as abhorrent as the straw that broke the camel’s back on this occasion. Let’s face it, by supporting Yiannopoulos while he promotes hate speech, the organisations also gave implied support for his positions on those other issues. Severing the connection when Yiannopoulos seemingly ‘crossed the line’ demonstrates the principal.

The Guardian reported that during a meeting of an ultra-conservative group in North Carolina, the ‘Islamification of America’ was being discussed:

The Muslim Brotherhood, a culturally conservative organization founded in 1928 that briefly took power in Egypt after the Arab Spring, is the focal point of paranoid rightwing fears about a supposed Islamic plot to infiltrate and subvert American institutions from within and impose sharia law.

“A tactic that the Brotherhood has established over the years is establishing the presence of Islamic centers or mosques, which for them means a recruitment center for jihad, and forming a permanent foundation wherever they’re allowed to exist,” Jones said, continuing to read from Stakelbeck’s book [The Terrorist Next Door].

Jones’s presentation was repeatedly interrupted by comments about killing Muslims from Frank del Valle, a staunchly anticommunist Cuban immigrant, with little or no pushback from the others in the room.

“Can we not kill them all?” Del Valle asked, about 15 minutes into the presentation, during a discussion about the differences between the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam.

But it wouldn’t happen in general society in Australia, would it? Well it does actually. Madonna King wrote an opinion piece for The Brisbane Times recently based on the reaction to Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s recent appearance on ABCTV’s QandA. You may remember that Adbel-Magied contradicted some of the more conservative panellists’ views on the Islamic religion and Sharia Law with some facts based on her understanding of the religion as a practising member of the faith. In the piece, King rightly labelled Australians as haters pointing out that while you and I certainly have the right to decide if we agree with Abdel-Magied’s opinion, she does have the right to vocalise it without people starting petitions for her to be sacked from her job presenting a show on ABCTV’s News 24 station, which is what happened on this occasion.

Let’s look at another example. Pauline Hanson was recently reported as suggesting that young women will deliberately get pregnant to receive some perceived advantage from the LNP Government’s proposed changes to family benefits. Quite probably she is partly right – generally a small minority will take any advantage that they can find and turn it to their perceived advantage. Hanson’s argument seems to be:

I’ve gone through a bloody tough life myself as a single mother and held down a part-time job. I had no assistance, no help from anyone. But we have such a welfare handout mentality.

Apart from the fact that single parent payments, family allowances and tax ‘breaks’ for families have been the practice of Australian Governments of all political persuasions for a number of decades, meaning Hanson could have received help if she met the criteria, her rhetoric seems as shallow and self-serving as her claim not to be a professional politician despite being first elected to the Ipswich City Council in 1994, followed by running for the seat of Oxley in the Federal Parliament in 1996, then failing to be elected at most elections between the end of that Parliament and the commencement of the current one.

The issue here is that considerably more young women will use the benefit as it was intended, to ensure that while babies and their parents are both going through a major change in their living and financial arrangements, there is some assistance from the rest of our society to make the financial transition slightly easier. Remember that the children who benefit from the government’s ‘largesse’ here are those who will be paying for the roads and medical services that the naysayers such as Hanson will consume in twenty to thirty years’ time when they are retired and contributing far less taxation (if any at all). All Hanson is really doing here is inflaming the anger in those who follow her particular brand of politics when they see pregnant women or young families walk past. It’s not healthy for the victims and certainly not healthy to the level of political conversation in Australia.

Of course, our ‘major’ party politicians wouldn’t stoop to using hatred to achieve political ends – would they? Don’t be silly, of course they do. As blogmaster of The Political Sword Ad Astra recently noted in his article Abbott’s legacy of destruction, former Prime Minister Abbott’s opposition to action on climate change wasn’t a divine revelation that there was another and better way to mitigate the man-made influence on global temperature increase caused by increasing emissions of carbon dioxide, it was purely political. It is worth looking at Abbott’s head of staff’s (Peta Credlin) statement on Sky News again.

Credlin made her comments during an episode of Sky’s Sunday Agenda: “Along comes a carbon tax. It wasn’t a carbon tax, as you know. It was many other things in nomenclature terms but we made it a carbon tax. We made it a fight about the hip pocket and not about the environment. That was brutal retail politics and it took Abbott about six months to cut through and when he cut through, Gillard was gone.”

As Ad Astra wrote:

The article continued with Credlin’s comments:
“It wasn’t a carbon tax, as you know.

“Okay, okay, okay. Let’s just provide some context. Australia has a complicated history in trying to do what many countries have already done – put a price on carbon emissions.

“Emissions trading scheme proposals contributed to the demise of Malcolm Turnbull as opposition leader in 2009 and Kevin Rudd as prime minister in 2010. Julia Gillard finally introduced a carbon-pricing scheme in 2011.

“It was Tony Abbott who re-framed Gillard’s scheme as a “carbon tax”, even though after the first year the price on carbon emissions was no longer fixed, and was instead set by the market.

“Abbott rode the anti-carbon tax movement all the way into The Lodge and eventually had everyone, including Labor and the media, calling it a carbon tax.”

How about we call that for what it is. Abbott lied to get the Prime Ministership. He traded off the future liveability of this country for his personal ambition.

Both Hanson and Abbott (amongst a number of other politicians from all sides of politics) also support or have supported in the past the forcible incarceration of refugees on Manus Island and Nauru while claiming to uphold ‘good Christian values’ not only in their daily lives but in their public lives. While neither ‘Thou shall not hate’ nor ‘Do unto others as you wish others do to you’ are listed in the 10 Commandments, they both have some textual context in the holy book that Abbott, Hanson and others claim to follow. How is changing an environmental imperative to a political argument, denying a benefit the country can obviously afford on the basis that some may abuse it, or treating people poorly in the Australian detention camps, not demonstrating pure and utter hatred to those who don’t meet particular world views of some extremely narrow minded people?

It’s somewhat hypocritical to suggest that ‘good Christian values’ are a part of your life while overseeing hate speech, active persecution of others for daring to hold alternative beliefs or not caring for the world we live in and are leaving for our descendants. You would have to wonder how these people can live with the basic contradiction that is obvious to a large proportion of society – if you have good Christian values, you should live by them.

Someone who should have some idea of what represents ‘good Christian values’ is the leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis. He has previously made statements on climate change, education, helping those who need a hand, paying your way in life and recently made a statement on refugees which has been widely reported. Even the extreme right wing Breitbart News (yes, the same august journal that accepted the resignation of Yiannopoulos) headlined their report with:

In powerful language, Pope Francis said Thursday that Jesus abhors hypocrisy and it is hypocritical to call oneself a Christian and at the same time not be welcoming to refugees, even if they belong to a different religion.

Pity those who routinely preach their ‘good Christian values’ will not put two and two together. Thou shall not hate.

There was a winner to the Federal Election last weekend. A lot of school parents’ organisations and charities made money on sausage sizzles and cake stalls across the country. While you could argue that if funding for education and to those less well-off was at a realistic level there would be no need for the sausage sizzle, it is becoming a tradition and clearly part of the Australian psyche.

Another part of the Australian psyche (according to politicians anyway) is that if they form a government, they have a mandate, and they can enact legislation to support their particular party platform ‘lock, stock and barrel’. To an extent they are correct, but the mandate they claim is nowhere near reality.

On 3 July, the day after the election, Clive Hamilton (Professor of Public Ethics, Centre For Applied Philosophy & Public Ethics (CAPPE), Charles Sturt University) published a piece on The Conversation’s website arguing

Commentators and newspaper editors who make statements such as “the nation voted for”, “the public wants” and “Australians have spoken” actually spend most of their time talking about divisions. Yet when faced with quantitative measures of public opinion that highlight the divisions (opinion polls and elections) they begin to talk as if the nation speaks with one voice.

Like most things, elections are not ‘all or nothing’ affairs. Let’s use public transport as an example. If I catch a bus to work and home every day, I might believe there is great public benefit in the government subsidising buses for the reduction in vehicles on the road, the time I can spend checking social media (or ideas for future articles) as well as thinking about what I have to do at work or just gazing out the window. I have clearly decided the cost of the bus trip both in time and fare is lesser than the comparable costs of driving my car into work, paying for petrol, additional maintenance and parking. However, I might wish there wasn’t a 5 km detour from the most direct route to my workplace, and the bus picking up enough people to make it difficult on occasions to get past those standing to get off the bus at my stop.

So in an ideal world, I would like all the advantages of public transport without the 5km detour – apart from the reduction in time taken it would also mean that the bus was less crowded. I’ve made the decision that on balance, the service is acceptable and the benefits of the bus exceed the disadvantages.

It’s the same with picking a government. In the recent election I might be a vocal supporter of Medicare but as I own a medium sized company, I would also like to pay less tax on the profits my company makes. At the recent election, my perfect world is a combination of the ‘flagship policies’ of the ALP and the Liberals. Clearly, I can’t vote for both parties, so I make a decision based on the less important (to me) policies such as a Royal Commission into the Banking Industry, the benefits of the 2016 Budget to me and my business and my belief there is nothing wrong with negative gearing, as I have 10 properties in my investment portfolio.

So I make my voting decision based on a stack of policy variables from a number of parties and have to vote for one party at the end of the day. Should I decide to vote Labor, I can’t ring Bill Shorten and ask him to change his negative gearing policy because I plan to increase my property portfolio – just as I can’t ask the bus company to run a bus that suits my ‘wants’ above the needs of others.

As the final figures for the election are still a week or two away, let’s just say that both the ALP and the Coalition received 35 to 40% of the first preference vote on July 2. A number of smaller parties split the remaining 20 to 30% of the vote. In all probability, the number of Parliamentarians from the so called minor parties will go close to the number of National Party members (remember the National Party – they are the ones that argue that they have input into a Coalition government) who have a red or green seat on Capital Hill in Canberra.

Naturally, the members of the smaller parties (as well as the Liberals, Nationals and ALP) all have policies and commitments to various parts of their constituencies, which if they were broken without some discussion may result in a very short political career. By the same token, a politician cannot say that everyone in their electorate wants a certain event to occur. For example, while Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has a policy to commence a Royal Commission into Islam, it cannot be said that all Queenslanders want this to happen as Hanson’s One Nation certainly didn’t get 100% of the first preference Senate vote in that state. Hanson (in the article above) is realistic to admit she wants the enquiry but it’s not the first order of business from her point of view.

Neither Shorten nor Turnbull can claim that 100% of Australians want their particular policies enacted either – as under 100% of the population voted for their respective political parties. Whoever does eventually form the government will rely on the support of some combination of the smaller parties and Independents. The express wish of Turnbull, ‘to clean out the Senate’ certainly didn’t happen.

Andrew Elder claims the Liberals underestimated Shorten:

BILL SHORTEN should not have been competitive in this campaign. A factional warrior up to his eyeballs in Labor’s leadership changes over the past decade, a union boss targeted by the Heydon Royal Commission, he should have been chewed up and spat out by a ferocious Liberal machine and a skittish, wounded ALP. Ignored by the press gallery for two years, except as a source of zingers, Shorten should have bumbled to an honourable but decisive defeat like Howard did in 1987, or Beazley in 2001.

… and …

The mistake the Liberals are making with Shorten is the same as that Labor made with Howard. They underestimated him. They believed their own publicity, refracted back to them by a witless press gallery. Their folly has allowed their opponent not only to steal a march on them, but to present himself in his best light, using skills developed assiduously well out of sight of sniggering opponents.

It seems likely that the Liberals will not learn their lesson quickly. Shaun Carney (Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, Monash University) wrote in The Conversation

Malcolm Turnbull has been leader of the federal Liberal Party twice – once as opposition leader, the second as prime minister. On both occasions, he has blown it. He has not been the victim of outside forces, nor an ambush, nor terrible luck. He has inflicted the damage on himself.

The narrative he and his Liberal deputy Julie Bishop tried to get up on election night – that the near-disaster of the result inflicted on their government at the nation’s polling booths was down to Labor lies about Medicare – is not convincing.

This excuse goes to Turnbull’s real problem: he’s not a very talented politician. By focusing on Labor’s “Mediscare” campaign, he was as good as telling Australians who shifted their vote from Liberal to Labor that they were gullible dills.

Which could be construed as suggesting the mood in the Coalition is ‘how about we blame everyone else without looking at our problems’. When this article was being written, Turnbull was still claiming he would be the prime minister of a government with a working majority. He may yet get there – but it is far more likely that he won’t.

Not that the ALP is much better. The ABC’s QandA on the Monday following the election was, naturally enough, focussed on questions around who was able to form government. The panel included Chris Bowen (ALP) and Sarah Hanson-Young (Greens).

In response to a questioner who asked if Labor should “stop being so bloody-minded” and “join hands” with the Greens, with whom they share ideological similarities, Bowen said he did not agree.

Chris Bowen ruled out any collaboration with the Greens, in a move criticised as “arrogant”.

“We said before the election, it was a firm commitment, no deals, concessions, agreements with any minor party. Greens, Xenophon, anybody else,” Bowen said, as Sarah Hanson-Young laughed incredulously.

While on an ideological level you can understand the argument that the ALP went to an election with a set of policies (with bonus points for releasing them prior to the election), given the trend towards a number of different views, isn’t it cutting your nose off to spite your face to reject any talk of alliance, coalition or discussions of equals regarding a future government – after all government is the aim, isn’t it?

On a purely practical level, whoever does form a government as a result of the 2016 election will have their work cut out for them. The ‘herding cats’ comparison has already been done so we’ll leave it there.

We are in a world where duopolies are certainly out of fashion. We don’t just go to the local Holden or Ford showroom to get a car anymore, Aldi (and to a lesser extent IGA) are doing well on their ‘mission’ to break the Coles versus Woolies supermarket stranglehold, Myers and David Jones are struggling due to the number of alternatives from IKEA to DFO that are now available and the days where the workers vote Labor and the managers vote Liberal have long gone as well.

There seems to be a day of reckoning occurring where those who choose to work in politics need to understand plurality – there are a number of views, they differ from each other to some extent and they all need to be respected.

Which gets us back to mandates. Across three major English speaking democracies the people are apparently telling the political leaders of their country what they want rather than what the politicians and business leaders would prefer. In the US, it could be argued that Bernie Sanders was far more popular with individuals than Hillary Clinton who is perceived as ‘establishment’, while the ‘anti-establishment’ Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee. In the UK, the Conservatives won the election in 2015, however, the 2010 election winners were the Conservatives in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. The ‘Brexit’ vote was also unexpected. In Australia, neither major party is making a convincing argument to obtain over half the vote at a general election; as demonstrated at the 2010 and 2016 elections.

Clive Hamilton was quoted earlier in this article arguing that the nation doesn’t speak with one voice. In a postscript to his article, written on Monday 4 July, he reinforces the point to counter the MSM’s ‘silliness’ in claiming that Turnbull was rejected:

“Australians have resoundingly rejected PM Malcolm Turnbull”. No they haven’t. Some 42% of Australians (of voting age) accepted him.

And “Voters have sent a loud and clear message”. Well, the message of 42% was “We want the Coalition to form the next government” while 35% sent the message “No, we want the ALP to do it”. And the loud and clear message of the 10% who voted for the Greens was a completely different one.

To say Australians sent “a message” is an incoherent averaging across various messages, and is a bit like saying “Australians on average have 1.99 legs”.

While both major parties have significant volumes of work in front of them to sort out who will govern (because the public ‘will’ speak with one voice if there is another election anytime soon), how to manage themselves and form alliances to be effective in the 45th Parliament and beyond – self-preservation will ensure it happens. There will be missteps, scandals and dramas along the way but there will be a stable government, just as there was in Gillard’s Australia between 2010 and 2013 (where a lot of good social policy was legislated) and Palaszczuk’s Queensland seems to be sailing serenely along; despite the feeling at times that there is a lot of furious paddling going on under the surface. The days of two major parties and majority governments are coming to a close – which really isn’t a problem, New Zealand and most of Western Europe have operated in this way for decades.

We do give our politicians a mandate. It is to turn up at the appointed time in Parliament, listen and contribute to the debate and make decisions in the best interests of the community they represent and also the nation; no more than that and no less. The decision on who to send to Canberra is based upon the policies they stand for, our personal observations of the candidate in question and the competing priorities that support the way each individual numbers the ballot paper.

The good thing about Australia is that while the politicians (and political nerds) sit there and fret about what may come, those who catch the somewhat crowded bus to work inclusive of the 5km detour will continue to do so, the sun will come up in the morning and the only thing that will go up in flames on election days in this country are sausages, not democracy.

This article was originally published on TPS Extra.

It’s probably a coincidence that there has been a lot more advertising around the National Security Hotline since the election was called. You know the ones, the sober colours, formal fonts asking you to report anything suspicious to a free call number. The television and radio advertising (with the foreboding music and deep voice reading the message) give you the impression that all information is valuable and a team of experts will dissect every scrap of information given and act on it. The overwhelming implied message is that we live in dangerous times, the Government will protect you and if you do report something you have done your patriotic duty.

If you have had the misfortune to travel by plane in the past couple of decades, you would be aware of the security clearance process required before you get to the boarding gate at larger airports. While unloading your pockets (and occasionally finding a bit of change hiding at the bottom), taking your shoes and so on off is dehumanising; if you are really lucky you also get chosen for an explosive check where someone rubs a piece of cloth around pockets, zips and bag closures – puts it into a machine and a minute or so later the machine declares that there are no explosives on your person or bags. While the process is dehumanising and it adds to the stress of the travelling experience, at least there won’t be a ‘nutter’ on my plane with a knife or bomb – which is a relief.

Airport security practices and sealing of medicine containers are practices imported from the USA. The US requires foreign powers to implement the practices in respect to airports under the threat of banning flights from US airlines to the particular country and denying landing/overflight permission to foreign airlines from that country if they don’t comply.

The US airport security service is provided by the Transport Security Administration. Unlike Australia, the TSA is a US Government agency and is well known amongst travellers around the world for their militaristic demeanour. Australia’s airport security is contracted out, but as the clip below demonstrates, the method of operation is similar.

Why the TSA doesn’t stop terrorist attacks

You may have noticed some references shown on screen during the clip – they link to the sources of the information for the statements made. The website is here should you like to read further. The television program Adam ruins Everything is shown on SBS2 in Australia.

We all know the way to get the ‘tamper-proof’ cap off a medicine bottle is to ask any child over the age of 4 or 5 to do it for you. When we struggle to get the caps or the silver seal off medicine bottles, we put up with it because we determine that it stops people getting into the medicine before the end user does and potentially keeps younger children from overdosing on the medicine.

Again Adam has done the research. The tamper-proof cap and seals appeared in the US after 1982 when some bottles of a pain relief tablet called Tylenol were interfered with resulting in seven deaths. This (US) Public Broadcasting Service article gives the history. The determination was that the packaging of the tablets needed to change to protect them from tampering.

Bruce Schneier was seen in the video clip above and also has an opinion on the rise of the tamper proof seals post the Tylenol tampering event

Yes, a degree of national security preparedness is required. Are we however shutting the door after the horse has bolted? Given that Australian authorities are more than happy to shout the results from the rooftops when they find a potential terrorist cell (although you rarely hear about any follow up action), I can’t recall any publicity about a potential threat to a plane being foiled by security screening. In addition, thousands more cram onto the public transport networks in our large cities every morning and afternoon with no overt security protocol (and sometimes without even checking if the ticket is valid for the journey), despite incidents involving commuter transport in other parts of the world.

Given there are holes in the screening of people so large you can drive a train through them (sorry), is there a better option? According to a number of the links suppled above, yes there is. While undoubtedly the National Security Hotline is part of the process and probably has led to the investigation of actual security risks; ramping up the advertising around the Hotline during an election campaign is pure theatre with ulterior motives that have nothing to do with how safe you feel next time you are out and about.

Since Malcolm Turnbull’s elevation to the role of Prime Minister, there has been consistent reference to his stated ideals and beliefs last time he was the Leader of the Liberal Party plus his public comments on ‘social issues’ such as same sex marriage, internet connectivity, climate change, the republic and so on versus his actions as Prime Minister. For a member of the same party as Abbott and Bernardi, he was really quite ‘small L’ liberal. At times he was more ‘liberal’ that the ALP.

All the issues above have not been converted into action by Turnbull since Abbott lost power in 2015, which has disappointed many people. There have been calls for ‘the real Malcolm’ to surface, shake off the conservative elements of the Coalition Government and show a sign that his personal statements actually mean anything. So far there has been little evidence of social change, which commentators have suggested is due to the ‘hold’ the conservative elements of his party have over him or his desire to obtain a thumping majority at an election and then implement what he actually believes in.

Let’s throw a third option into the mix. Let’s suggest that you are seeing ‘the real Malcolm’. Turnbull’s proud of the fact that he was raised by his father as the sole parent from the age of 9 and at times it was hard on him and his father. Without minimising the effects of the dislocation he endured while growing up, he certainly wasn’t on the same struggle street as a multitude of other children growing up with single parents endure.

Turnbull started school in Vaucluse (not a poor area by any means), then a preparatory school, which was a campus of Sydney Grammar School, as a boarder before moving to the Randwick campus to board while attending the main campus of Sydney Grammar School on a partial scholarship. He was a school captain.

After school he was lucky enough to go to University during the mid 1970s, when Whitlam’s ALP Government introduced free university courses and to his credit he won a Rhodes Scholarship. Turnbull attended Oxford University and on his return to Australia became a barrister. He then worked for Australian Consolidated Press – owned by the Packer family at the time before setting up his own law firm with a partner. Later he established an investment banking firm with some well known partners and became a partner in Goldman Sachs.

It is well known that Turnbull was involved in one of Australia’s internet service providers, Ozemail, and had other commercial interests. Certainly, Turnbull has done well and his ability to adapt, change and demonstrate more than a passing level of competency in a number of different fields is a credit to him. It also demonstrates a level of determination as well as a degree of self-belief.

However, where is the understanding, knowledge and empathy with those who don’t have the good fortune (or financial backing) to be able to be sent to one of Australia’s most expensive schools, obtain a University degree, be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and be the Managing Director of a number of companies? While Turnbull can clearly read a balance sheet and legal brief, does he have any comprehension or understanding a family budget where the decision has to be made if another 2 litres of milk (even at $1 a litre) can be purchased before payday? Has Turnbull ever faced the prospect of having his basic wage hours reduced because the company’s management is going to miss their profit projection – causing the loss of 1 cent per share to the dividend payment? Turnbull certainly doesn’t need to worry about retiring and being forced to live on the current age pension and other government subsidies that are reducing in comparison to costs in the future.

While it could be argued that Shorten isn’t much better – at least he has almost certainly heard first hand accounts of those who really do have to wonder if they can buy the milk. Shorten also seems to have the ability to empathise with those who haven’t had the skills, knowledge or ability to become a lawyer, as both Turnbull and Shorten have done.

So while Turnbull may have been the public face of the Republic Campaign in the late 90s, supported action on climate change in the late 00s while Opposition Leader and came out in support of same sex marriage and climate change mitigation more recently, that doesn’t necessarily mean he has the courage of his convictions to prosecute the argument should the going get tough (as it apparently did when he lost the Liberal Party leadership to Abbott). Neither has he had the lived or learnt experience of those who haven’t had the opportunities that Turnbull has been given.

Turnbull has lost significant political capital since his elevation to the Prime Ministership. You’d have to ask if it’s because the Turnbull who spoke out on the republic, same sex marriage and climate change has been consumed by the Turnbull who understands he only retains the ‘top job’ if he doesn’t rock the boat. If so, is ‘the real Malcolm’ the one who will say or do what is necessary to retain position and some power.

With half of the election campaign to go, the Turnbull we see on TV each night more often than not looks tired and irritated with having to deal nicely with people while on the hustings. Shorten seems to be enjoying the interaction. So the proposition is – have we seen ‘the real Malcolm’ for the last 9 or so months hidden in plain sight?