But she must take a stand, whether it’s to discipline the flock she leads or to dig in against the vulgar and arrogant, which includes the deeply unpleasant Alan Jones. Whether or not she kowtowed to Jones – or just to the racing lobby – her position on turning our lambent Opera House into a tawdry ad is disgraceful. At the very least – the very very least – she should have told Jones that his treatment of Herron was unacceptable. But nope, Berejiklian’s accepted it; and so, clearly, has Macquarie Media. I seriously hope it isn’t coming with the rest of Fairfax to Channel Nine because it’s a national media embarrassment.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (which needs to grow some bills. It even wants to grow some.) has never put licence restrictions on Macquarie (as it did with Kyle Sandilands’ erstwhile broadcaster) even though Jones’s breaches have been significant. They demean our national character. The race riots at Cronulla. The lies about climate change. He is an ageing tyrant who should not be permitted to broadcast hate, misinformation and misjudgments. On Monday, ACMA had an avalanche of calls about Jones’s execrable behaviuor. A spokesperson said: “Members of the public have expressed concern to ACMA that the broadcast was disrespectful, rude and aggressive.” Of course, it will be hived off to the broadcaster in the first instance, which will file them with the delete button. You’d love Macquarie to be forced to handover its complaints to ACMA to log on a daily basis, wouldn’t you?

So hate speech has coincided with Berejiklian’s weakness – that puts us all at risk in this state because the Premier is allowing bullies to win. I won’t say that Jones’s targets are always women. Not always.

A serious motorcycle crash on the Western Distributor closed three city-bound lanes. Credit:Lester Ranby

Of course, that’s just the here and now. Last month, Berejiklian was again humiliated. She has an inability to manage the moody men in her party and – again - sides with the wrong ones. That wouldn’t be so bad – I mean, it’s not as if any Liberal leaders do a good job of managing their troops – but she was seriously exposed when she backed treasurer Dominic Perrottet instead of Ray Williams, her minister for multiculturalism.