”, April 12), approving the upgrade of the Australian War Memorial before an expensive business case was available. The auditor-general has revealed cost blow-outs, poor oversight of contracts, financial manipulation to avoid exceeding ministerial approval thresholds, inadequate conflict-of-interest investigations, and value-for-money shortfalls. Morrison’s fingerprints are all over the botched process, but will he accept any responsibility for this scandal? Of course not.
“Agreement on difficult topics may not be possible. Even then, the process of working towards agreement, of honest and open discussion, can be important. We seem to have lost this ability, or perhaps the desire. And yet, this bleak fact too is something we will largely leave unspoken.”