After one of the ugliest political weeks in recent memory, it’s still not clear what Scott Morrison’s agenda is

‘Scott Morrison won’t care about the institutional backlash … that’s a transaction cost of changing the conversation from deaths in aged care to national security.’ Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Back in the Howard era, we used to talk about dog whistles. The point about dog whistles is they are subtle things. The sound is supposed to be inaudible to humans.

Scott Morrison holds power in a much noisier era. Everybody shouts, the prime minister loudest of all. There was nothing subtle or inaudible about the penultimate sitting week of the current parliament. It was one of the ugliest political weeks in recent memory.