The sight of makeshift gallows being marched through the streets of Melbourne by extremist protesters should have brought a sharp and unequivocal rebuke from our Prime Minister.
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Videos posted on social media on Tuesday showed the protesters gathered around a wooden gallows chanting "Freedom", "Traitor", "Kill Dan Andrews" and "Hang Dan Andrews" while attempting to place the head of an inflatable doll of the Victorian premier through the noose.
The nation waited, in vain, for the Prime Minister's complete and utter condemnation of such a hate-filled tirade.
This was our Capitol Hill moment.
While these extremists were not storming our houses of parliament as they had in Washington DC, nonetheless the vicious, hostile sentiment was abundantly clear, with violence threatened against Victoria's democratically elected leader by what amounted to a thinly-disguised lynch mob.
And yet all we heard from the PM, a few days later, was his sympathy for those "who have had a gutful of governments telling them what to do".
Mr Morrison said disputes needed to be ventilated respectfully "no matter how frustrated people might be" but also declared it was time for the governments of Australia to allow people to make their own choices, urging Australians to "take their lives back".
Collectively, we should be aghast at such a lame response from our highest office bearer. The Prime Minister has a responsibility to knit the country together, not pick sides or pander to extremist views.
Our Prime Minister always has struggled to reconcile, right through this lengthy pandemic, with how various state and territory governments have independently managed their responses to the COVID-19 health crisis.
While he has acknowledged the state and territory rights to do so, having Labor premiers and first ministers following their own paths on how and when they should manage their own health affairs and re-open their borders must stick like a fishbone in the throat.
Victoria's parliament is debating the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment Bill, which gives the premier and health minister the power to declare a pandemic and make public health orders.
Yes, Victorians were locked down for many months and for some, the frustration has clearly boiled over. Equally, people have a democratic right to peaceful protest.
However, this was a tip-over point. This was far-right inflammatory nonsense and should have been declared so.
A leader with an ethical compass is required in such circumstances, one who will call it out for what it is.
But it didn't happen. Instead, we received a weak and insipid response which will do nothing to quell the faux outrage of extremists who, should they contract COVID-19 during all their red-faced shouting and mask-free close-marching, will enjoy access to free emergency health care to hopefully save their lives, regardless of the stupidity which landed them in the emergency department in the first place. That's how lucky they are to live in this country.
Vaccine mandates, travel restrictions, business shutdowns and border closures have divided the country in a way we haven't seen in decades.
This global pandemic is not over, not by a long shot. In places like Germany and the UK, the virus is now in its fourth wave.
It's time for unity, not division; clarity, not politically-motivated posturing. Draw the line, Prime Minister, don't straddle it.
