They call graduation commencement over there, to mark the moment you begin to live your real adult life. Anyhow, I was reminded of this brilliant pretend speech by our Prime Minister. I know it is difficult to imagine Morrison as brilliant, but stay with me here.

Why did this piece of sparkling rhetoric remind me of Morrison marshmallow?

It's this. Schmich tells her imaginary audience: "Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience."

This week, the least authentic leader Australia has ever experienced tried to pretend he had some good advice to give on how to deal with COVID. Nothing in his tenure so far has made me confident Morrison would provide good advice on how we should live our lives. This is the man who presided over the vaccine strollout, who sealed our national borders in a way which made it impossible and unaffordable for families to reunite, who went on holiday to Hawaii while the nation burned, who had to ask his wife if sexual harassment and assault were indeed as bad as they were made out to be. And the man who only warms to climate change when it looks as if his voters in marginal seats are cooling on his party.

And as many in our nation begged for the return of masks to stop the spread of the wildly infectious COVID variant Omicron, Morrison said no. We wanted a mask mandate, and the Prime Minister's response was this: "We don't have to mandate people wearing sunscreen and hats in summer."

He said it's all about a culture of responsibility in this country, personal responsibility, despite the fact that there are laws which govern almost everything we do. For example, I cannot get behind the wheel of a car with a blood-alcohol reading over .05 because I might injure or kill someone. I can't sell heroin. I can't avoid tax, unless I am [insert name of multinational]. In addition, smoking is banned in most public places and is subject to massive fines. You can't smoke in government offices, airports or most workplaces. This protects us from the actions of others. It saves lives.

Think of it like this - over 2000 Australians have died since the first case at the beginning of 2020. If we can take some measures to prevent deaths, why wouldn't we do that? Where are the idiots resisting no-smoking mandates in their offices, and why should we indulge them when it comes to masks and QR codes? These are small sacrifices in order to protect the bigger national interest.

On Wednesday, the national cabinet met. In the past, it has been gloriously defiant of its glorious leader, but not this Wednesday. This Wednesday the national cabinet decided not to forge a consensus on masks. Or on QR codes. Or on anything which really mattered too much. Get boosted. Have more hubs. Figure out a national protocol for close and casual. Duh. And why did consensus fail? I blame Dominic Perrottet. But at least he's come to his senses now.

Morrison won't say anything relevant or useful about on-virus matters, not now, not ever. Takes me back to his enmiserabling days in immigration.

As Sean Kelly writes in his gripping and depressing book about Morrison, The Game, "Again and again, Morrison refused to acknowledge potential problems." That could be written in the present tense, and that's making me anxious. Leaders who don't want to acknowledge the difficulties the rest of us have to deal with, while they remain sheltered in place. And we have no shelter and no financial support as, once again, the cookie crumbles.

READ MORE:

There are easy solutions, but this government does not want to solve the problem for some inexplicable reason. Could it be it wants to pander to a small bunch of selfish fools always banging on about individual rights? What about collective responsibility? What about taking the advice of the health professionals in this country, who think masks save lives? I know it's the night before Christmas, and I should be happy and excited about what's to come.

As for not mandating sunscreen and hats, it's a shame we don't. About 2000 Australians die each year from diseases related to sun exposure. That's 2000 people who could have been saved. In the case of COVID, we have had about that many die over two years. Imagine if we'd mandated masks, QR codes, social distancing and air filters. Imagine.

There is much else in Schmich's original piece which would benefit us all. She urges us to be careful about whose advice we buy, to be kind to our knees, and to "accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasise that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders." And I'll re-up* the meaning of philander for you: betrayal of your electorate, not only of your marital partner.

Morrison should have taken Schmich's lead, with a slight twist: "Wear masks. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, masks would be it. The long-term benefits of masks have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience."

Especially the bit about his own meandering experience.

*Earlier this year, I made a terminology error in a column which was, among other things, about drug supply. I've done a lot of reading since then. In this instance, I have used re-up to mean resupply. I'm sure the young and cool will be in touch.