People should not be responding to bigoted ugliness with any ugliness of their own.

We have a natural constant craving for leadership. Democracy is always a fragile and imperfect achievement. Yet a distinct feeling of malaise in our political culture lingers. There is something missing from our public debates.

If anyone has engaged unlawful activity, they should be held to account with the full force of the law.

People should not be responding to bigoted ugliness with any ugliness of their own.

No-one wants to see violence of any kind on our streets, certainly not any violence that's justified by extreme nationalist ideas or that targets people because of their religion.

Anti-Muslim protests represent a fringe of our society that's seeking to promote hatred and division.

I'm not so sure liberal democracy as we know it has reached its terminus. It's clear though, that many have genuinely lost confidence in the Australian political class. One reason is that we like to place enormous burdens of expectations on modern political leaders. To be sure such expectations aren't always honest. Just as we want better public services but object to paying the higher taxes that would make them possible, we often want leadership but only if there aren't hard choices with real consequences.