Various vehicular metaphors are commonly used to describe the unravelling of an incompetent government, usually involving train wrecks, car crashes, disasters happening in slow motion or wheels falling off. The Albanese government finds itself deserving of all of them. This month marks two years of Labor federal government in Australia and what a calamity it has been; exactly as we predicted on this page, by the way, when we opined, ‘Run by possibly the lowest calibre of intellects and individuals ever to assemble in a single federal parliamentary party room (other than the Greens, but that should go without saying), today’s Labor party bears no resemblance whatsoever to the aspirational workers’ party of Bob Hawke et al. Modern Labor is a cynical grab-bag of identity politics, racial grievances and climate ideologies designed to pander to the lowest common denominator of the angry, the lazy, the greedy and the ill-educated, devoid of a single worthwhile (or workable) economic or governing principle.’ Looks like we were right. This week, even more so than before, Australia has been forced to suffer under a government that can only be defined by the three i’s of ideology, idiocy and incompetence.

Let history record the battered and bruised face of 73-year-old Ninette Simons, beaten savagely during a Perth home invasion, as the visual legacy of this ‘compassionate and caring’, ‘anti-sexist’, ‘anti-misogynist’, ‘pro-women’ government. This week police alleged that one of her assailants was none other than Kuwaiti-born Majid Jamshidi Doukoshkan, one of the 154 immigration detainees released into the community in February following Labor’s bungled response to the NZYQ ruling in the High Court late last year.

What is now clear is that two of those ‘lowest calibre’ politicians referred to above, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles, bear the responsibility for this entire tragic affair; the farce of dangerous criminal detainees being released in the first place, and then, to compound the matter, the unbelievable failure to properly monitor those released despite guarantees they would be. Just to recap: Australians now have 7 murderers or attempted murderers, 72 armed robbers and kidnappers, 16 stalkers and DV offenders, 37 sex offenders or pedophiles and 13 serious drug offenders out and about in the community thanks to these two Labor buffoons. Ninette Simons and her husband were unlucky enough to encounter just one of them.

Without a shadow of doubt, both ministers should resign immediately for this grotesque failure of government policy and accountability. Instead, both have gone AWOL, mocked as ‘missing in action’.

Competition amongst other Labor frontbenchers to be equally as useless and equally as undeserving of their responsibilities is fierce. Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen clings like a survivor on the raft of the Medusa to his flawed and failed renewables policies, as the rest of the world increasingly recognises that not only is ‘net zero’ a sinking fantasy gone wrong, but the only hope of genuinely reducing fossil fuel preponderance is to switch to or increase reliance on nuclear energy.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, always keen to be at the front of any pack, even when it comes to making a fool of himself, has become the butt of online ‘memes’ following the resurfacing of comments he made last year about ‘misinformation’ being ‘fake images of myself superimposed on other people’ and the need for social media companies to ‘do the right thing’ and take them down. This has, rightly in a democratic society, led to a veritable avalanche of online memes mocking and ridiculing the Prime Minister. Mr Albanese’s ‘Future Made in Australia’ campaign may or may not result in a single new legitimate manufacturing job, but the Prime Minister has single-handedly reinvigorated the Aussie larrikin homemade visual satire industry.

The hallmark of this hapless government is its appalling, even comical, timing, in that what they proclaim at any given moment is nearly always the opposite of what their policies are delivering. Thus, a cluster of large Australian businesses go bust immediately after Labor announces they are backing Australian businesses. A woman gets beaten up in her own home courtesy of Labor’s detainee policy just as Labor announces new spending on combating the horrors of violence against women. Labor announces a crackdown on ‘misinformation’ by banning an unedited video of a real event following which the man who was attacked himself insists the video should not be banned. The Prime Minister barges into an anti-violence- against-women rally, insists on mansplaining over violence against women, and then reduces the female organiser to tears.

Talk about slow-motion train wrecks.

Which of course presents a tantalising opportunity for opposition leader Peter Dutton and the Coalition to capitalise on the success of their campaign against the Voice last year. As this magazine has frequently asserted, electoral success for the Coalition is almost certainly guaranteed if it does one thing and one thing only: opposes Labor.

Instead, we have had the unbelievable stupidity of members of the opposition agreeing with Labor’s ‘eSafety Commissioner’ nonsense and promising to support tougher measures against online ‘misinformation’. So let’s employ another vehicular metaphor. While Labor hurtles off the cliff, the Libs need to perform a sharp handbrake U-turn on ‘misinformation’. Quickly.