The government's plummeting popularity in the polls and the episodes of public protest we are seeing, such as during March in March, would suggest they have anything but majority support.
And how has that gone? According to the cartoonists who regularly draw them as Children... not that well.
![Picture](/uploads/8/4/1/7/8417532/4682628.jpg?311)
Very Adult.
The supposed independent Speaker of the House, Bronwyn Bishop plays favourites, kicks out only members of the Opposition, still attends party room meetings, and smirks and makes snide comments from the chair... Very Adult. No wonder Labor tried to pass the first motion of no confidence in the speaker since 1949.
The Abbott government, the right wing warriors that they are, zealously seek to dismantle imaginary impediments to free speech such as section 18C of the racial discrimination act based on no evidence that is affecting anyone other than Andrew Bolt. There has been no public outcry about this other than from Mr Bolt and from the IPA, the think tank that has produced most of the government's policies. Brandis' changes have been labelled extremely 'White' by conservative commentator Waleed Aly, who suggests this is a shift back toward the kind of social protections provided by the White Australia Policy.
With budget announcements approaching, a promise to cut deeply has been lost behind the irrational behaviour of a shambolic government. You might be forgiven for thinking that re-igniting the culture wars was an intentional smokescreen, but when all will be revealed next month, hiding the realities of budget cuts in such a way for such a short period of time is ir
And then we have the childishness of Abbott's '100 days without a boat' press conference. To triumphantly announce this as if his football team had earned a resounding victory shows that the Adults are not in charge. Adults would not describe torture as simply 'in difficult circumstances, difficult things happen' just because it helps your childish 'stop the boats' sloganeering. And a competent foreign minister would not oppose a thorough investigation of alleged human rights abuses in Sri Lanka during the civil war (with suggestions that these are ongoing raised last night on Q&A. But Julie is far from being a competent foreign minister and the no more boats scorecard is far more important than the truth about Sri Lankan asylum seekers.
This childishness is observed from a different perspective by Judith Brett. As an observer of the Abbott government's performance over its first 6 months in power, she suggests 'It all feels a bit like student politics in its short-term point-scoring, its payback and its intense personal antagonisms'.
Abbott does strike you as someone who hasn't matured beyond his wild undergraduate days... politically or personally.
All this has left commentators Jonathan Green wondering if they know what they are doing, and Barrie Cassidy wondering the same thing.
I've long since stopped wondering.