There is a particular, parched flavor of boredom that emanates from the Australian political landscape, a place where the sun is too hot for nuanced thought and the stakes are perpetually lowered to accommodate the local talent. We find ourselves today observing the slow-motion collapse of the 'Coalition'—that curious, century-old marriage between the Liberal Party, who represent the people with harbor views, and the Nationals, who represent the people who own the dust. It is a union that has finally reached the 'thrown plates and separate bedrooms' phase of its inevitable decay, and the spectacle is as predictably tragic as it is unintentionally hilarious.

Bridget McKenzie, a woman who navigates the shadow ministry with the weary air of a headmistress in a school for the terminally confused, has stepped before the cameras to announce that the Nationals are taking their ball and going home. The cause? A disagreement over 'hate laws.' How utterly quaint. In an era of global upheaval and economic entropy, the Australian Right has chosen to fracture over the precise wording of a statute designed to regulate the adjectives one may use in a public square. McKenzie, with a straight face that suggests she either possesses a formidable intellect or an absence of mirrors, claims this was a 'very serious and principled decision.' In politics, of course, 'principled' is merely the word we use to describe a tantrum that has been vetted by a PR firm.

She then invoked her father’s wisdom regarding Newtonian physics: 'for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction.' One must admire the audacity of applying the laws of motion to a political party that has been stationary for the better part of a decade. The 'reaction' in this case is the mass resignation of the National party's shadow ministry, a gesture of such profound futility that it borders on performance art. They are resigning from jobs they don’t actually have, in a government that doesn't exist, to protest a law that has already been passed. It is the political equivalent of a man threatening to stop breathing in protest of the weather.

The burden of this farce has been placed squarely at the feet of Sussan Ley, the Deputy Liberal Leader, whom McKenzie suggests must now handle the 'fallout.' It is the classic bureaucratic maneuver: start a fire in the breakroom and then calmly inform the janitor that the cleanliness of the building is now 'up to them.' Ley, meanwhile, is left to manage a Coalition that currently looks less like a governing force and more like a collection of survivors arguing over a lifeboat that is already upside down.

Then we have the matter of the 'hate laws' themselves. McKenzie assures us these laws are vital to confront 'vile antisemitism and racism.' One can almost see the gears grinding. They supported the laws to keep the public safe, yet resigned because they didn't have the 'comfort' they needed. It is a stunning display of having one’s cake, eating it, and then complaining to the baker about the calorie count. They want the moral high ground of the legislation without the political baggage of having to explain it to their base. It’s the kind of intellectual cowardice that makes European bureaucrats look like Spartan warriors.

Not to be outdone in the theater of the absurd, we must acknowledge the mention of the gun buyback program. McKenzie beams with gratitude that gun owners are 'participating' in making Sydney safer. There is something delightfully Orwellian about the state buying back property it never owned with money it doesn't have, all to create a sense of 'safety' in a city where the greatest threat to life is the cost of a mediocre flat in Surry Hills. It is the ultimate placebo: if you can’t stop the social fabric from fraying, you can at least make sure the citizens are less equipped to defend their scraps of it.

And finally, looming in the background like a recurring fever dream, is Barnaby Joyce. The man who has spent a career proving that you can, in fact, build a political brand out of sheer, unadulterated noise, has felt the need to clarify that he is not 'hawking for members' for One Nation. When a politician tells you they aren't doing something, it is a mathematical certainty that they have at least checked the price of the equipment required to do it. The very fact that he has to deny it tells you everything you need to know about the stability of the Coalition. It’s not a coalition; it’s a hostage situation where the hostages have started to fall in love with their own irrelevance.

Ultimately, this is the endgame of a political culture that has mistaken activity for progress. They reshuffle their shadows, they resign from their fantasies, and they quote physics while the house burns. It is a marvelous comedy, provided you don't actually have to live there.