Rarely has parliament looked more out-of-touch

While many Australians are battling the after-effects of crushing natural disasters, the government is obsessing over phone calls to friends and decimal points. It’s shameful, writes Peta Credlin.

Labor’s parliamentary week started with question after question to Energy Minister Angus Taylor about a false document on travel expenses that was the basis of a letter to the Lord Mayor of Sydney; and it ended with question after question to the Prime Minister about a phone call he made to the NSW Police Commissioner who happened to be his former neighbour.

I mean, talk about the Canberra bubble.

RELATED: Scott Morrison calls NSW Police Commissioner over Angus Taylor investigation

I spent most of the week in Dubbo talking to farmers who can’t feed their stock because of drought and a generation of government inaction when it comes to building dams. And this weekend in Sydney, there are still people without power who can’t cook or take a shower or even charge their phones in their own homes five days after a freak storm because electricity authorities can’t get power poles back up again. And in London, yet another terror attack.

It’s been a disastrous week for Angus Taylor and Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: AAP/Lukas Coch

Rarely has parliament looked more out-of-touch with what’s really going in people’s lives.

Of course, someone in Taylor’s office should have twigged to the improbability of the numbers they were relying on vis a vis the overview City of Sydney travel budget. And the PM should have thought twice before he picked up the phone to the police commissioner (I know I would have cautioned against it). But when no personal gain was sought and no actual damage to anyone was done, is this so-called scandal of a decimal point in a letter really worth all the parliamentary sound and fury devoted to it? Labor would be smart to be careful here because people haven’t forgotten Craig Thomson’s theft of health worker union funds, Eddie Obeid, Aldi shopping bags of cash, Sam Dastyari, indeed the ongoing probity trainwreck that is Jackie Trad. And I could go on.

RELATED: Malcolm Turnbull criticises Scott Morrison for ringing police over Angus Taylor investigation

We’re not America and we couldn’t readily have a Donald Trump-like figure emerge here because he’d have to construct a parliamentary majority rather than just win a popular vote. But watching parliament this week, you can understand why Australians, too, might think that it’s time to “drain the swamp”.

Originally published as Rarely has parliament looked more out-of-touch