EARTHQUAKE by Nikki Savva

Voters saw Dutton as abrasive, harsh, uncaring, unsympathetic, and lacking empathy. And the more they saw of him – literally – during the campaign, the less they liked him.

Although it is not his fault, Dutton’s appearance is confronting. He began wearing glasses in public. That helped soften him a little. But too often his language matched his appearance. His looks might not have mattered so much if his words or his general demeanour had been less threatening. The combination was forbidding.

The Germans have some excellent words that we English speakers don’t, and schadenfreude is one of them. Wiki says it means ‘pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of the troubles, failures, pain, suffering or humiliation of another’. Earthquake was a feast, a banquet, a total monster troughing pig-out of schadenfreude. Basically, almost – but not quite –  too much of a good thing.

Labor’s election victory of May last year was a definitive trashing of the Coalition, and Nikki Savva lays it out in delicious, forensic detail. Dutton and the Coalition saw the defeat of the Voice referendum – a blow; that pre-election promise dear to Labor leader Anthony Albanese – as a victory for conservatives and a wholesale rejection of the whole Labor agenda. They expected to win the 2025 election. All they had to do was churn relentless negativity (Dutton’s speciality), add a little Trump-lite and pursue the culture wars so beloved of Sky After Dark and The Australian. How wrong they were. How glad I am that they were. You could even feel sorry for Dutton if you were that kind of person, because he was surrounded by staffers who kept him in the dark about how badly the Liberal party was doing out there in the actual real world. So, interesting times. We shall see if the Liberals can pull themselves back from extinction…

This is the fourth of Nikki Savva’s books I’ve read. She seems to have access to all sorts of major and minor players (how pollies do like to talk about themselves!) and a  perception of the many dramas of ambition, betrayal, revenge and bastardry that play out, often simultaneously, in the world of politics.