No more Mr Slice Guy
THIS time last week, our Prime Minister was hoping for the best.
If we believe the messaging he was putting out at the time, he was convinced his mob had a good shot at disrupting Super Saturday and snagging a few seats.
An LNP victory in one or two would unsettle the ALP so much that they would reconsider their own leadership.
This would reconfirm Malcolm so much that he may have been tempted into an early general election.
Georgina Downer would join him in the Cabinet and a new era of Nation Builders would arise from the current rubble of the present Parliament. That was the theory. History shows a different result. The ALP won the four out of five, the Downer dynasty was confronted with the possibility that perhaps they are not born to rule after all and by the end of the weekend’s news cycle the PM was eating humble pie.
We now know the pie in question was being consumed with a knife and fork. Fair enough, quite frankly. We’re living in a free country, right? What’s wrong with using utensils?
During the by-election campaign, deep down in Tasmania, our PM had been papped tucking into a pie (with no sauce). The nation had a hernia. Social media erupted into a critique of his choice to equip himself before the consumption of his luncheon.
Tasmania is well known for political gastronomic gaffes. Just Google ‘Abbott Onion’ and you’ll get a taste of what I’m talking about.
Tassie is the site of the extraordinary sight of Tony choosing to chow down on a baby brown. Skin and all. This is the footage that shocked a generation and reminded Australia that some of us have weird habits when we eat.
Eating in the public gaze is a wildly embarrassing process for most people. But a pie with a knife and fork is a far cry from a raw onion.
So this week, I come to defend the PM. The criticism he received about his pie was completely unfair.
As any politician will tell you, context is everything. In the picture, it is clear the PM is sitting at a table. He’s in an outside eating area. And he’s been given a pie on a plate with a knife and fork. It would be rude to pick it up and start gobbing.
If he had used his hands, we would have been hung, drawn and quartered. And criticised for not washing before dinner.
But it doesn’t matter that Mal has a penchant for silverware.
There are far more important things for Australians to worry about. Aren’t there?
Let’s not forget, this is the same PM who gave a way $444 million to a not-for-profit to look after the Great Barrier Reef. Close to half a billion dollars with no application, no tender process and nobody from the public service in the room.
No selfies were posted from that meeting.
The way the pie is divided is more concerning than the choice of utensils.