Would Scott Morrison’s Lowy Institute speech on international organisations last Thursday have got so much comment if he had not visited Donald Trump the previous week? Mr Trump told the United Nations on September 24 that “the future belongs to patriots, not globalists”. Everyone assumed our Prime Minister had sipped the same Kool-Aid during dinner on the White House lawn a few days earlier. “Globalism must facilitate, align, and engage, rather than direct and centralise”, he said in his Lowy speech. “Such an approach can corrode support for joint international action. Only a national government, especially one accountable through the ballot box and rule of law, can define its national interests. We can never answer to a higher authority than the people of Australia”.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, meanwhile, has been busy demanding the redesigning of national energy industries by next year, declaring fossil-fuel industries dead, and wants the West to hand over $100 billion a year to developing countries to mitigate climate change.