The issues dominating Australian public debate are many and various But most of them can be summed up as the defence of Australian institutions that have been under attack by radical extremists. I’m referring to such institutions as the ABC, CSIRO, the weekend, public education, the union movement, the fair go our natural environment and our indigenous heritage. Mention of any of these is enough to raise a derisive sneer from the radical rightwing apparatus that dominates much of Australian politics, most obviously the supporters of Tony Abbott who (ludicrously) call themselves “conservatives”.
Turnbull promised something better but was, if anything, worse than Abbott. So far, it seems as if Morrison is going to continue the trend. Having dumped nearly all his unpopular economic policies, he’s left with nothing but the culture war, which would be more accurately described as a war on culture.
John Quiggin 
I don’t think Turnbull will be doing politics again. Those who got rid of him have had a win of sorts and it explains a lot why nothing was done to hold Milne. And sure enough, on the Stan Grant program, tonight up turned a typically objectionable shill reiterating the call for privatisation.
The situation with the US Supreme court nominated through a broken system deserves consideration If you see the Supreme Court as a prize to be captured by vested interests bypassing original “normal” governance. In the US, the election of Trump and both Houses as conservative strongholds through consent manufacture means that normal scrutiny of such an important appointment becomes superfluous, although pedants will claim this is due to an election result rather than the manipulation of governance that has occurred with the ABC, starting Howard and particularly since Abbott and Turnbull.
In the case of the ABC board, we say more accurately the ” IPA, Murdoch and Albrechtsen ABC” than “our” ABC.
Perhaps we could further suggest Emma Alberici as our own home-grown Bader Ginsberg, or whistleblowing woman as has been occurring with Kavanaugh, the lunatic right nominee selected by Trump and his Red State friends. But it is unlikely that even Labor would effectively enough reform ABC governance for fear of offending vested interests, as occurred a decade ago when Rudd capitulated to Chris Mitchell and his infernal master in London. This is despite the problematics of Labor’s own survival under a sufficiently rightist regime.
As surely as the ABC becomes a Stepford zombie should the right win, you could kiss goodbye to any hope of saving Roe v Wade and a vast number of other civil liberties issues in the US as it heads to something akin to the “Handmaids Tale” scenario, including maverick capitalism given carte blanch to ruin the environment beyond retrieval with likely future toxic results akin to those presented in Attwood’s novel.
As for Australia, how long before this country is dumbed down to imbecility through public broadcasting and education cuts also?
The institutions listed in the OP are worthy. But there are other Australian institutions that most defenders of those listed would not be so keen on: Australia Day (especially), the constitutional monarchy, and the RSL come to mind. Some institutions are in opposition to others. Not all institutions are worth defending or keeping.
RSL is not a public institution in the same way that the constitutional monarchy or in a somewhat different way the ABC is though it is as are many “third sector’ insittutions an actor in the public space
I sometimes wonder if we are not in a sort Leibnizian multiverse as unaware monads governed by algorithms.
We keep getting groundhog day with the government, with the ABC scandal repeating the mistakes of the AWU raids Cash scandal, say, and several others at regular sequential intervals over the last half dozen years.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/sep/29/michelle-guthrie-reportedly-told-abc-board-it-would-be-retribution-if-she-was-sacked
Is not the repeating of previous behaviors for the same results with conservatives something pathological to the extent underlying cosmic wiring, or just pathological in the sense that applies to isolated individuals?
I do admit to being caught out on a lie myself in a previous life, of course, but as Einstein is said to have said, isn’t the repeating the same mistakes over and over actually a definition of lunacy?
I realise I am wandering into a free will/ determinism swamp, but the ABC events, on top of so many similar antics over recent times, have this writer back to questioning his own cosmology and metaphysics.
You can widen the evidence pool to include an offshore antic of the Kavanaugh sort, but that is up to you, dear reader.
As an afterthought,
“More things under heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy” Hamlet 1.5, Shakespeare.
Socrates, to put it roughly, is said to have suggested that it is harder to do wrong than to do right, bad for the soul.
I suppose, one thing, if income equals hard work, politicians, civil servants and others of the conservative elite must surely earn their quid.
I’m sure lots of Australian right-wingers look longingly across the Pacific and wonder why they can’t have as much fun as their American equivalents. The closest our politics can produce to a Michelle Bachmann or a Donald Trump are Bob Katter and Clive bloody Palmer.