What a dismally depressing week. A Government determined to use every means to discredit its opponents. An Opposition playing games and refusing to acknowledge the seriousness of the economic crisis. Both sides hurling ideological epithets at each other, as if voters could care less about such figures as Milton Friedman and Gough Whitlam as unemployment rises, trade collapses and we face a huge deficit.

You might think that at some point our governing class would realise just how serious a situation Australia and the world confronts, and understand the need to work together. Not by suspending partisanship, but by putting it aside on the fundamental problem of mitigating the oncoming catastrophe. But on the evidence so far, you’d be wrong.