The evidence is everywhere that we have a dilettante government: in failed policy ideas and process, a political tin-ear, butchered budgets, negotiating ineptitude, shifting values and whacky ideologies.
That doesn’t mean that the Government won’t learn and improve. Sure it will. It’s slowly backtracking from it’s more outlandish budget ideas, is crawling back to the political centre as it pays off the favours that bought it power and will undoubtedly improve further with time and experience. But for now, this Government remains more chastened adolescent than rounded adult.
Unfortunately that immaturity is now coming face-to-face with the most adult question of all, whether to go to war, and the signs are not encouraging that it has evolved enough to render the decision with the gravity it deserves. As the AFR’s elder statesman, Tony Walker, argued on the weekend:
