For a prime minister whose performance has been such that he needs to force people to shake his hand, the value of a good imaginary hobgoblin is clear. His willingness to stand behind a transphobic bigot over the criticisms of his own party goes only serves to demonstrate the value of culture war and the ‘national safety valve’ to those whose time is up on any other count.

It hardly goes without saying that such moral disengagement is a characteristic feature of Abbott’s style of rule, though in all fairness it is hardly unique to him. It is this that is lost when his actions are attributed to stupidity rather than duplicity. He is, after all, the protege of former PM John Howard, who used the ‘ancient fantasy’ to devastating effect during such events as the Tampa crisis and the children overboard affair as an ideological safety value for weaseling out of all the harmful consequences of three decades of neoliberal policies.

In actual fact, the process of easing occurred when national governments supplied these sharks with free money in gargantuan quantity. As well as being off the hook, such institutions were also being further enabled by those responsible for bringing them to justice. For the recipients of this quantitative easing, it must have felt like it was time to party like it was 2006.