Going through a preselection loss in his seat of Hughes, and changing into ever extra embarrassing even by the requirements of the Morrison authorities, local weather denialist and COVID misinformation spreader Craig Kelly has moved to the crossbench and thus relieved Scott Morrison of a seamless political drawback.

Kelly has been an issue magnet that even the brazen Morrison has discovered troublesome to disregard. His promotion of COVID quackery led to — ultimately — an tried prime ministerial rebuke within the final sitting of parliament.

That didn’t rein him in: Kelly ignored Morrison and went proper again to Fb to proceed to advocate for discredited COVID therapies corresponding to ivermectin, till the social media platform suspended his account. Revelations that Kelly’s long-time staffer Frank Zumbo was below investigation for harassment of Kelly’s feminine employees and had been the topic of a provisional apprehended violence order emerged final week as the federal government roiled from its mishandling of the Brittany Higgins’ scandal.