The major parties had several chances to meet the moment. Instead they chose to safeguard their collective mediocrity

‘Voters across the spectrum remain sickened at the literal death toll from gambling harm, the women and children hurt, the money sucked out of their communities.’ Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

If you need any more evidence that the two-party system is cooked, look no further than the not-so-grand coalition that came together to preference power over people in the federal parliament last week.

These days the Liberal and National parties have taken to condemning modern Labor as “socialist” and some of its policy “communist”.