In what I at first assumed to be satire Barrie Cassidy has called for Scott Morrison to be given unprecedented powers to fight terrorism, lining him up as our next PM.
Morrison has had one job in this Government. Stopping the Boats. He has set about achieving it by stretching Australia's naval and customs resources to their limit, greatly increasing Australia's exposure to external threat. He has spent $3.3 billion this year detaining a few thousand asylum seekers in brutal conditions, more than Australia's entire Research and Development budget ($2.7 billion) and the equivalent ($3.5 billion) of the UNHCR's entire budget for sheltering 11.6 million refugees worldwide.
He has proudly rejected all criticism from amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UNHCR. He has constantly ignored international law and rulings from the High Court of Australia. He has shown no concerns about conditions in his detention camps being assessed by two UN inspections as amounting to physical and psychological torture and child abuse. He has praised conditions that have resulted in two men dying because of his department's policy of neglect and indifference. He has no compassion as legal guardian for the 1,300 children held in Immigration detention, including 128 who were born there. He is happy to deal with corrupt regimes with appalling human rights records in Asia and has no regrets about returning more than 50 asylum seekers to Iran, Iraq and Syria in recent months. No Australian federal politician has embraced cruelty, censorship and the exploitation of fear and prejudice as uncompromisingly as Scott Morrison.
Morrison's complete lack of empathy is driven by a belief in himself that is as unquestioning as his religious devotion. The sort of devolution that tells you when you believe what you're doing is right the ends, no matter how appalling, always justify the means. It's the sort of belief that has caused atrocities throughout history and is causing them today in Iraq and Syria.
That type of "strength" might appeal to Barrie Cassidy, but if you're just fighting one form of fanaticism with another, you've already lost.