Rare is the job that comes with a failsafe cheat code, yet the Australian prime ministership has one. It is asking yourself “Would Scott Morrison do this?” and then absolutely not doing that.

Anthony Albanese won the top job from the aforementioned in 2022 essentially by holding a big invisible sign reading “I am not the other guy” while Morrison careened around the country body-slamming children, being weird and saying tin-eared, patronising things about women.

That’s precisely why it was such a shock this week to hear him describe the sexual violence survivor and advocate Grace Tame as “difficult” when asked to describe her in a one-word-answer segment of an onstage interview.

Outrage has spread. It’s not merely because “difficult” is a gendered term that has been used to delegitimise women who enforce boundaries or demand standards. Nor is it because anyone who remembers the Morrison era can too easily imagine him saying it.

It’s because forgetting this context of the word – even under the pressure of quick-fire questioning – is positively Morrisonesque in its political dopery and suggests alignment between past and present PMs at a desperately inopportune........

© The Guardian