How do we describe the national mood?
What about dire? if that is overstated consider a few of the issues dominating debate.
It seems extraordinary to think that only 16 months ago the Albanese Government swept back into office.
Sign up to The Nightly’s newsletters.
Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox.
By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.
But it was not long before its standing began to slide.
It offered a timid response to angry pro-Palestine protests on our streets and the rise of anti-Semitism, even before the horror of the Bondi massacre in December.
The Government then dug in and opposed a royal commission into the tragedy before it was shamed into calling one.
It then delivered a ham-fisted Budget which broke promises given before the 2025 election that capital gains tax and negative gearing would not be touched.
The housing market stalled as buyers stayed away and prices are now set to fall steeply, bringing the risk of some recent buyers facing negative equity.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers last week conceded the Budget’s housing tax changes were one of the factors at play.
Another was the Reserve Bank of Australia’s three interest rate rises this year, which continue to smash those with a housing loan.
The RBA has in part linked the need for rate rises to inflation-boosting government spending — with gross Commonwealth Government debt having hit the $1 trillion mark.
Heaven help us when the next COVID or GFC-style crisis comes along.
And make no mistake, there is always a next time.
Meanwhile a cohort of so-called ISIS brides have found their way back into the country with the Government maintaining it hasn’t helped them — but can’t stop them.
The Government has been unable to land a plan on immigration — a hot button issue — a month after Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke abruptly pulled out of a key speech in which he was due to unveil changes.
Anthony Albanese bumbled into the ill-fated podcast appearance in which he joined in a crude conversation about who he would “shag”, his own sex life and the “Melongate” saga about melons given to him by Japanese female Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
Australia’s productivity crisis shows no sign of recovering. Gross domestic product has been sluggish.
We are in the middle of an AI revolution which offers a potential way to deliver economic gains. But it is speeding way ahead of the Government’s responses.
The business community has gone from lecturing the previous government on climate change to being hammered by the Albanese Government on tax and a pro-union and restrictive industrial relations regime placing extra burdens on it.
It is of some relief that the unemployment rate has not blown out.
Were that to happen the instability would go up another notch.
Incredibly, the national political agenda is being driven by the continued agitation of what was until very recently a minor populist party.
The times are at the very least glum and uncertain. A deep malaise hangs over the country.
The nation is screaming out for leadership.
And so we can but ask where this is all heading.
Is the Albanese Government approaching tipping point?
