How is it only Wednesday?

How are we still here?

How has it we have a lived three lifetimes and it is only Wednesday?

All of that is to say, hello and good morning and welcome back to The Point Live.

We start today where we have started every day – talking about Sussan Ley’s leadership. I have read all the thought pieces and the columns and I just wonder why anyone is surprised. Ley has stood for nothing. She has no principles to point to that she can say ‘well, you knew this was important to me’. She has flipped and flopped and now she’s floundering. So here we are. If it’s not now (and honestly, given how much of a mess the party is, who would want the responsibility of owning that) it will be as soon as the party has a direction. Tim Wilson is being floated as a potential ‘moderate’ deputy for Angus Taylor. And down and around it goes.

ASIO chief Mike Burgess has given a Lowy lecture where he says much the same things he always say and each media outlet picks out the narrative that suits their particular line the most.

He has said three nations have a “realistic possibility’ of attempting an assassination in Australia, but did not name them.

The countries that I didn’t mention by name know who I’m talking about.

We know who they are.

By mentioning them publicly I’m also putting them on notice that we know some of you are prepared to do this and we will do our damnedest to stop it before it happens.”

The amendment that would give police powers over welfare is still floating around – the unrelated bill it has been tacked on to seems a bit of a mess, so there might be some further action in addressing the whole thing today, but maybe don’t hold your breathe. There seems to be a lot of people worried about ‘perceptions’ rather than what is actually at stake. These slides into further authoritarian powers are usually because all of these incremental fights were seen as too difficult or not worth the discomfort. So it is always a death of a thousand cuts, rather than one big swoop, but you only need look at the protest laws to see how these things creep up over you. It doesn’t stop.

We’ll cover it all off as the day goes by. It’s a solid three coffee morning. Hope you have yours.

Ready? Let’s get into it.