Meet General Waffle, AOTY

The rare virtue of the ABC’s Q&A programme is that it sometimes permits a panelist to reveal his true self. So it was on Monday night, when David Morrison, Australian of the Year, who should have been able to seize the opportunity of the first programme of the year to tower over the other members, betrayed the fact that he doesn’t have an original thought. Tossed the first (and loaded) question by Tony Jones, Morrison fumbled the ball.

“Is it right that we continue to hold our National Day on a day that marks the invasion of Australia?” It was a question a military strategist should have expected. His response was a muddled stumble through a miasma of embarrassment, uncertainty and attempted identification with “our brothers and sisters in the Indigenous community.” That was before conceding he didn’t feel qualified to answer.

“This is something the government would have to decide,” he said, adding that “the only way a government would decide something as key…