Cavalier Reilly squandering Coalition credit

For a man already named and shamed as a debtor, Health Minister James Reilly seems remarkably cavalier about squandering whatever political Coalition credit he has left.

To humiliate Labour once over health policy might appear careless (it wasn’t: it was deliberate), but to do so twice — and barely a month later — reeks of utter contempt for the junior Government party.

But is that really what happened this time around? The Coalition is now so riven with distrust and dysfunction that conflicting narratives compete for attention.