For such a time as this? … how can they be so cruel to our PM? … ad-libbing

Talk about timing There’s brazen, and then there’s this: the Morrison government has chosen to fill a few of the precious remaining days in Parliament with “debate” around unnecessary and harmful laws that toy with the safety of gender-diverse kids for the grubbiest of political ends.

So one wonders if there was any hesitation sending out the following email, soliciting volunteers for the Fair Day on February 20 and, even better, offering tickets for the Liberal Party float at this year’s Mardi Gras. Feels like it would take some serious compartmentalisation for anyone who purports to give a shit about these issues to accept such an invitation. But what else is new?

The kingmakers have spoken There’s a lot to unpack in Janet Albrechtsen’s column this morning. First is the blithe recognition that the Liberal Party considers the opinion section of the nation’s only broadsheet part of “the team” and views disloyalty from it as surprising and hurtful as a star player putting in a transfer request. Second is the bizarre description of Morrison as “the Liberal Party Kevin Rudd”. For all Rudd’s faults, we can think of almost no comparison that lines up on fewer levels. For all the criticism you could level at Rudd’s premiership, by all accounts it emanated from his overstuffed policy platform and his Terminator-like zeal grinding everyone around him into a paste until he had no friends left.

Hardly the same thing as Morrison’s untethered collection of photo ops, occasionally interrupted by laws he fails to get passed. But most significant is the central argument:

When Morrison describes the aspirations of Australians, it’s like reading a Hallmark card. He never braves the harder stuff, the values a democracy depends on to function. Truth be told, I can’t work out what values excite him politically. Except winning.

Albrechtsen concludes Morrison simply isn’t up to the job, and you can mark today down as a rare and shining moment when she and Crikey are in perfect concert. This follows Andrew Bolt’s Monday piece saying Morrison looks desperate and “finished”.

Worryingly for Morrison, this looks like a funhouse mirror image of what happened to John Howard. In September 2007, within days of one another, Bolt and Albrechtsen delivered columns arguing it was time for Howard to go. Of course, the tone was extremely different that time: you could practically feel the hot blur of tears between them and their words (“This is the one of the hardest columns I will write…”). And we suspect Albrechtsen did not give the PM’s office a call to let him know this was coming.

Ad-ing to the debate We know Clive Palmer and his Facebook uncle of a political party, the United Australia Party, are spending millions on advertising in the lead-up to the election. We’re beginning to suspect not very much of that is going towards proof-reading. On the front page of today’s Oz comes the following — first, its staccato rhythm (“Over 1 trillion dollars in debt. Where are the new hospitals and doctors? Throw them out”) sounds like someone just typed out the voice memos Palmer left himself while composing a piece of performance poetry.

And second … wait … who do you think we should throw out?