The United Nations Climate Change Conference – COP26 – is coming up soon, but Scott Morrison is toying with the idea of not attending the event in Glasgow. This is the most important climate change conference since 2015 – and possibly ever – but Morrison isn’t interested, too busy fondling the lump of coal he dragged into federal Parliament, a rock which has become symbolic of his prime ministership. Or too busy remembering his trip last week to New York – a UN meeting that he really didn’t need to be at, but did allow him to meet with the bosses of News Corporation. Why bother about rescuing the planet when there is an election to be won?

And politics is never too far from COVID – the Victoria and NSW governments have almost identical roadmaps out of COVID, but it’s the Victoria government Morrison is taking aim at. And while he’s at it, the Western Australian and Queensland government on borders. Morrison thrives on division and chaos for two reasons – because he does not have a bone of decency in him and knows no other way, and it helps to mask his mismanagement of COVID during 2021 and the corruption and incompetence that has riddled his government since he became Prime Minister in 2018.

But the independents may have a say in this: they’re coming for the Liberal Party, they mean business and they’ve had enough of a lack of action on climate change, and they’ve had enough of incompetency, corruption and indecency. The next federal election might end up being Independents Day.