Praiseworthy is maybe the first novel in the world which takes all of these pressures completely seriously. It is an attempt to think a planet in “polycrisis”: beset on all sides by exploitation, genocide, economic collapse, authoritarianism, population pressures, disposession and colonial violence, all overwritten by the looming reality of environmental disaster.

Even though the election was won on the ground of domestic economic concerns, and the incompetency of the Liberals, it was treated as a sanctioning of this new soft authoritarianism. Since then, Labor has governed with fairly naked contempt for the people and their opinions.

The fact of fascism in Australia is quotidian and mundane, creeping insidiously into mainstream culture through policy and broadcast. Most of the time, it is enough to let the logic of a settler colony move to its own authoritarian conclusion. Occasionally, however, things do flare up and remind us of how the table is set. This happened two weeks ago, when the police cracked down on antifascist protesters while protecting the far right.

The movement towards the centre is no shock if you’ve been following Australian politics in the last 15 years. What is confusing is the willingness of left-wingers to get behind Labor without a scrap of shame. The ‘principled’ left, those who’ve long identified with strict positions on climate change and social progress, seem all too happy to indulge in the carnivalesque of electoral gasbagging. Prominent leftists like McKenzie Wark openly endorsed Labor (from the safety of his private Facebook page), declaiming the Greens’ inability to form a functional, cohesive platform.

This weekend, there will be a rally against young Australia’s new bedtime. It’s telling of activism in NSW that thousands turn out to a march protesting the restriction of their capacity to drink, as opposed to, say, systematic oppression and economic inequality. Seems like all it takes to create a sense of disenfranchisement is to ruin a kid’s night out.