In less than a week as acting PM, Michael McCormack has given conservatives a licence to lie

The acting prime minister of Australia has given party colleagues and extremist warriors a licence to lie.

In doing so, Michael McCormack has turned his one-week fill-in for a vacationing Scott Morrison into a crisis of credibility which could affect all in the Coalition and the conservative branch of politics.

He did this with his argument that truth is negotiable, a line that evoked former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway’s infamous line about “alternative facts”.

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During an interview on the ABC, McCormack was asked about fellow Coalition MP Craig Kelly sharing misinformation online. He said in response: “Facts are sometimes contentious, and what you might think is right somebody else might think is completely untrue.

“That is part of living in a democratic country.”

A provably false contention has the same value as a statement of verifiable fact under the McCormack position.

Then there is that broader matter of government credibility should its MPs be allowed to say whatever they make up under a confected appeal to free speech.

McCormack’s creation of contentious facts could be taken as permission to reject those nuisances such as confirmed medical advice and science, allowing campaigns against measures to deal with the pandemic or changes in the climate.

It is not an outlook one might expect from an acting prime minister who once was a journalist, a profession ideally dedicated to facts. It might have been a bout of clumsy wording which can strike us all. But McCormack has declined to retract it.

As such he has provided what might amount to a free pass which will suit ill-informed politicians hungry for attention.

The LNP member for Dawson George Christensen was the immediate beneficiary.

Christensen wants laws preventing social media platforms fact-checking posts, and removing those without basis.

“How long before the social media overlords interfere heavily in Australian politics? It’s time to rein them in,” he wrote on Facebook on Sunday.

McCormack ignored Christensen’s dabbling in baseless conspiracy theories with the stunningly incongruous line: “George Christensen also supports the Mackay Ringroad.”

Another MP keen to blur the distinction between facts and make-believe is Craig Kelly, Liberal MP for the New South Wales seat of Hughes, who recently shared a debunked article about antifa being part of the US Capitol mob, and has advocated use of unproven drugs to combat Covid-19.

He has also shared on Facebook a study into mask-wearing by children, likening their usage to “child abuse”.

McCormack became Nationals leader and deputy prime minister in February 2018, elected in part in the hope he would be an antidote to his predecessor Barnaby Joyce. He would be a safe pair of hands, as the cliché goes, but also a safe pair of lips.

McCormack was not anticipated to repeat the outbursts of Joyce. But he has now created his own brand of recklessness.

Within the Nationals and the broader federal Coalition there will be questions about the party’s decision in 2018.

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Particularly given it was not his only jaw-dropping remark of the week. McCormack could also not bring himself to convincingly condemn the violent invasion of the Capitol in Washington on 6 January without raising past “race riots” in a cackhanded attempt at equivalence.

He seemed to argue the loss of lives and property in Black Lives Matter protests excused or explained the Capitol atrocity. It was a familiar line from the hard right.

But McCormack had a duty to express Australia’s dismay at an attack on the operation of democracy in the US. Instead, he blathered his private opinion, unencumbered by pertinent facts.

When challenged about the comments, he doubled down. “I appreciate there are a lot of people out there who are being a bit bleeding heart about this, and who are confecting outrage.

“But they should know that those lives matter, too. All lives matter.”

The statement was another projection of ignorance which McCormack will have to overcome.

Competent ministers such as David Littleproud of Queensland and Darren Chester of Victoria will have their performances highlighted by comparison with that of their leader.

McCormack won’t lose his position as a result of these missteps, but he now has little scope for further pratfalls.