Labor has finally bitten the bullet and removed Andrew Giles and Clare O’Neill from the immigration and home affairs portfolios.

It’s been a long time coming. A government that considered itself accountable to the Australian people would have sacked them much sooner over the debacle that saw almost 150 dangerous criminal detainees released into the Australian community. But not Labor. O’Neill has been moved sideways to look after housing and homelessness, while Giles has been moved sideways to take on skills and training.

Their portfolios have fallen to Tony Burke, one of Anthony Albanese’s most loyal head-kickers. It’s the same Tony Burke who oversaw more than 6,000 illegal arrivals by boat when he last held the portfolio in the Rudd-Gillard years. It’s the same Tony Burke, whose western Sydney electorate is now threatened by an emerging ‘Muslim Vote’ group, putting a lot of pressure on him to open the borders to immigration from the Middle East, especially for Palestinians who’ve been radicalised under a terrorist government.

Linda Burney, who failed so spectacularly to deliver the voice to Parliament as Minister for Indigenous Australians, has been replaced since announcing she wouldn’t contest the next election. Thanks, Linda: You wasted $450 million of our money on a failed referendum but you’ll be allowed to ride off into the sunset on your own terms, leaving indigenous policy in ruin and a legacy of racial division in Australia.

Murray Watt, Labor’s chief general in the war on Australia’s farmers as agriculture minister, has been promoted after killing off the live sheep export industry. He now takes on industrial relations, where he can continue to prosecute Labor’s war on farmers and small businesses and enable unions to hold our economy hostage.

Despite their failures and the damage they’ve done to Australia’s society and economy, and despite the Prime Minister’s promise to be an accountable government, Labor’s luminaries continue to skate accountability and live large on the Australian taxpayer.