It’s been a difficult year for so many people. Many of us are battling adversity of one type or another and we are reminded very often that the world is a dangerous and – at times – ugly place. Closer to home, we’ve seen a dispiriting revival of zero-sum politics, supercharged by a media cycle geared to making news consumers feel things as opposed to thinking about them.
But rather than slide into a funk, let’s consider two positive things that happened during the final parliamentary sitting week of 2023. The first was (as Bill Shorten, the minister for the national disability insurance scheme, put it) “for a moment in time, federation worked”. That was Christmas miracle number one: a productive national cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Anthony Albanese struck a deal with the states and territories to split the cost of disability services outside the NDIS in return for a further three years of GST funding.
