The Prime Minister resembles a mindless fish which swallows any bait dangled in front of it. Most are from ABC fiefdoms which realise that any sexual assault allegation, even unprovable, is his Achilles heel. (The explanation for Labor MPs being exempt from such allegations must be that they are all maritally faithful or celibate.)

Character, principle and an ability to lead and communicate are important qualities of leadership. In bringing down Tony Abbott through the vicarious votes of his followers to install the pretender Turnbull, Morrison spectacularly failed this test. Through his action, the nation lost a worthy successor to John Howard, who with Robert Menzies ranks among Australia’s greatest leaders.

To conservative voters (including traditional Labor voters) Morrison, while vastly better than Shorten, is back on probation.

He shows himself too easily distracted from the very issues which should be at the top of the agenda – reversing foolish bipartisan policy for expensive, unreliable electricity;  seriously harvesting water now, reviving manufacturing, reducing housing costs, taking back Beijing-controlled assets, ensuring future pandemics are properly addressed and correcting the mess he has made in defending Australia.

Why does he so endorse unproven anthropogenic global warming, which remains so challenged, indeed, discredited by so many scientists? While the eminent Bjorn Lomborg accepts the theory, he points out that according to the UN, not doing anything by 2070 will not be the end of the world. Applying the UN’s own projections, a person today earning $1,000 gross per week would lose about $20 but be earning about $2,400.

As to Wuhan, this column argued from the beginning that we should follow democratic Taiwan’s highly successful world’s best practice. This meant no lockdowns, an authoritarian response designed by Beijing. (That most countries adopted the lockdown is not so surprising; most major Western powers foolishly supported Obama in funding Tehran to develop nuclear energy.)

Most politicians today, including Morrison, behave as if they are automatons controlled by a shadowy trio, computer modelling, ‘the’ science and expert advice. They forget Burke’s observation that we choose our representatives for their judgement.

Apart from his failure to use Commonwealth powers to stop some premiers from closing their states for blatant political purposes, the full cost of going down the communist lockdown path will soon be revealed. With JobKeeper going, around 150,000 jobs and 110,000 businesses will be vulnerable in addition to the large number which have already gone.

When it was predicted the budget will not be back in surplus before 2040, Finance Minister Cormann pleaded ‘What was the alternative?’ Nature having made us two remote islands, all we had to do was control entry, concentrate on the vulnerable and wait for Donald Trump to deliver the vaccines which he and not Biden soon did. If we’d done just that, about one thousand lives, billions and billions of dollars and unknown numbers of jobs and businesses would have been saved.

Coming to the question of defence, Morrison seriously erred not only in publishing the Brereton report but especially in his appalling endorsement of its ‘brutal truths’, thereby removing the right to the presumption of innocence from the few men living today who have risked their lives for Australia.

Having done that, the sensible solution argued here was to require any prosecution be launched by Easter. But no, Morrison adopted an excruciatingly slow process. So the threat of prosecution will hang over the heads of our veterans for what will seem an eternity. Thank you, PM.

The result is that the morale of those who served, those who are serving and those who would serve has been seriously, perhaps irreparably. damaged. Add to that, raiding the defence budget for political advantage to produce that monstrosity, a multi-billion contract to convert to obsolescence twelve nuclear submarines with delivery delayed such that they will not all be available even for the  2045 Sydney Harbour VJ Centenary Naval Review by King William.

Will the enemy wait, Prime Minister? Like his class, Morrison is far too influenced by polls. As demonstrated here before the election, the polls were smitten with a fundamental error about preferencing. In addition, they failed to detect that a sufficient number of traditional Labor voters felt betrayed by Labor. The polls were wrong then; why think they’re right now?

As a minister, Morrison acted correctly over the fake refugee issue, but then he was under the direction of a Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, who had courageously determined correct policy to the ridicule of the elites and the commentariat. Contrast that with Morrison as Turnbull’s Treasurer, when he inexplicably targeted that mainstay of the Liberal party, the self-funded retirees. The result was a strike and worse, resignations.

This is not to deny that discrimination, sexual assault and rape are extremely serious. That is why the rule of law and properly endowed and professional law enforcement forces, primarily state, are essential.

One thing is clear. Contrary to neo-Marxism, the overwhelming majority of white heterosexual males are not responsible for the assaults, rapes, gay-hate and racist crimes which have been and sadly will be committed.

And if there is what is called a ‘woman problem’ in the Liberal party, the answer is not quotas, if only for the simple reason that such neo-Marxist identity politics requires there must also be quotas for an infinitesimal and never-ending list of groups, indigenous, Asians, gays, etc.

The only criterion for pre-selection should be merit.  Given preselections are too often now decided by a candidate’s allegiance to some powerbroker, all political parties who share in the cornucopia of legal and taxpayer-funded financial privileges should be required to be open, democratic and transparent, with preselections decided by primaries among registered party supporters.

Time for the return of Tony Abbott?