It's a by-election the Liberal Party should have won, but didn't. Eden-Monaro. Despite all the resources put into the campaign, the Government nudged the margin by just 0.45% – not much and certainly not the massive swing and "brutal lesson to Labor" the New Corporation reported with glowing headlines in their local versions of Pravda and The North Korea Times.

For all the glowing support provided to Scott Morrison by the mainstream media, there's an underbelly of electoral negativity that will come back to haunt this Government. The electorate is in a holding pattern to see how the Government responds in the long-term to COVID-19 and the downturn in the economy: if they mess this up, they can expect to be defeated at the next federal election in 2022. That's the main message from the Eden-Monaro by-election. And choosing strong local candidates is another key message.

The Palace Letters were always going to be controversial, irrespective of their content: did they reveal too much about the 1975 Dismissal? Or too little? Either way, the release of the Letters will bring up the inevitable debates about should Australia become a republic. The British Monarch had too much influence in 1975, but 45 years later, it's a constitutional appendix that has no need and is an irritant on our political system. And, like an appendix, it's an operation that needs to be performed sooner rather than later.

Hold the crisis: it's really time for the football. And for the Prime Minister, that really means going to the corporate box at Kogarah Oval to watch some grown men kick an oval-shaped pig-skin on grass, schmooze with business leaders and a former Liberal Party director, the one who somehow forgot he had donated $165,000 to the Liberal Party. That tends to happen to a political party that represents capital interests and big business. And that Liberal Party donor – also known as Scott Briggs – is someone who is keen to snatch the business of a privatised Australian visa processing system.

Anyway, who's got time for a national crime and corruption commission to look into something like this. Don’t interrupt: there is a football game to watch, schooners to sip from, sponsors and donors to meet and greet. The wife and daughters are away too, so, it's time to drink up. The national interest can wait.