Nation’s worst government? Jane Hume’s hyperbolic historical claim

Jane Hume will never been accused of understatement, but her return to the Coalition’s frontbench appears to have excited her to new heights of endearingly bonkers hyperbole.

Hume, having been elevated to deputy leader of the Liberal Party after former leader Sussan Ley cruelly condemned her to a period in purgatory, is clearly not about to let mould grow on new opportunities to lay it on thick.

Thus, when she was given the microphone on ABC radio on Wednesday morning, she set about sprinkling fairy dust on the ailing Coalition’s new front bench while denouncing with relish Anthony Albanese’s Labor outfit.

“We want to prosecute Labor’s failures – it’s the worst government in this nation’s history,” she declared.

Hang about. The worst government in this nation’s history?

Why, the Albanese government has only held the reins for nine months, and that’s in its second term.

Give it time.

It might yet gain the exalted position of worst in history, but it’s got some stiff competition.

Hume herself, after all, was a minister in Scott Morrison’s government. We shouldn’t dwell on the memory of the Morrison period, of course, it being too painfully recent for reasoned judgment.

Let’s scroll back, then, through the gaga Tony Abbott and tortured Rudd-Gillard-Rudd periods, tempting as it might be to invite spirited argument about which was worst.

A knighthood for the Queen’s husband, anyone, or a “Real Julia” moment in quest of escape from Kevin Rudd’s relentless undermining?

Let’s go back a bit further. What about the prime ministership of poor Billy McMahon, such a champion liar, backstabber and leaker that Gough Whitlam dubbed him “Tiberius with a telephone”?

McMahon will retain forever the title of silliest PM in Australian history, which naturally places his short-lived government (1971-72) in contention as the worst.

Famously, a journalist once asked McMahon about his vision for the future. He frantically flipped through his voluminous briefing notes before declaiming: “No, nothing about the future here.”

Whitlam replaced McMahon in The Lodge, and remains much lauded for his numerous achievements in upending old, staid Australia and remaking its future.

But the last year of the Whitlam government must be in the running for the worst in history – or at the very least, most mind-boggling.

The secret and fruitless attempt to borrow billions through a shady commodities dealer named Tirath Khemlani? The various ministers who misled parliament over this and other would-be secret loans? A married treasurer, Jim Cairns, declaring he had “a kind of love” for his private secretary, Junie Morosi, when just about everyone knew what kind of love it actually was? Oh, and Whitlam’s own spectacular misjudgment in appointing his own executioner, John Kerr?

Skip much further back and you’d have a rich choice regarding which government of the indestructible Billy Hughes’ was the worst.

He was prime minister representing three different parties in less than eight years, from 1915 to 1923. Having split his Labor Party by demanding and failing to introduce conscription during World War I, he was expelled by the party, leading him to form the National Labor Party before switching to the Nationalist Party – all as PM.

You would bewilder yourself trying to figure which might have been the worst of the governments the peripatetic Hughes served over his 50 years as an MP. All up, he represented six different political parties, led five, outlasted four and was expelled from three.

And then there was the government of Jim Scullin.

He had the great misfortune of becoming prime minister within days of the New York stock market crash of 1929, which soon enough condemned Australia to the Great Depression.

Though Scullin himself strived mightily to cope, the economy and political enemies, including Labor rebels who crossed the floor against him, conspired to bring him down. He was gone by the end of 1932, his one-term Labor government smashed by Joseph Lyons’ United Australia Party, reducing the ALP to just 14 of the parliament’s 76 seats.

We won’t go on, though we could, for the title of worst is splendidly subjective.

Meanwhile, we await Jane Hume’s merry promise on Wednesday’s radio outing that the latest Coalition frontbench will soon enough “be ready for government and [to] change Australia for the better”.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.