Labor’s spectacular census own goal hands Dutton a double victory

Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton. The government ‘is trying to remove anything that might expose it to a new scare or drag it into another unwanted culture war’. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

There’s an empirical test for divisiveness. If something appeases one section of the community and enrages another, it would seem to fit the bill.

Within a matter of days this week, the Albanese government went from levelling that charge at Peter Dutton to being accused of it themselves.