Friday lay day sees me in Florence, Italy. The G20 waste of time and real resources meeting in Brisbane is now over and the World leaders have departed or are swanning around Australia on goodwill tours aka trough sampling (as in pig snouts at the). Our conservative government deeply embarrassed itself and its electoral appeal with a petulant display of parochialism. Instead of outlining a vision for the world’s future and Australia’s place in it, our political leadership chose to focus on their internal policy disappointments (that the democratic process here is not allowing them to proceed with – all aimed at attacking the poorest members of our society). At the same time they were vigorously trying to stop climate change discussions featuring on the agenda. Pathetic really. This small-time austerity mindset was perfectly captured by The Shovel this week.