It’s madness in federal politics
NO SENSATION compares to that sublime drunken plateau where even the most graceless bar fly transforms into a world-class pool player.
Cheeks flushed with a tipsy sense of inevitable victory, heightened perception getting blunted with every sip — it is a magical but fleeting delusion that thaws a taut gut like nothing else.
Bill Shorten is coasting along that blessed ridge right now, quivering on the cusp of risking it all on a cocky trick shot that leaves him pantsdown, running laps of the table with a length of flaming toilet paper singeing his clenched clacker cheeks.
For now at least he is safe, as his paralytic opponents’ minders splash cold water on their faces in a desperate effort to sober them up before the next game.
And by Howard’s eyebrows, they are sloshed.
Born again teetotaller Malcolm Turnbull — Australia’s biggest wasted political opportunity since Mal Meninga — has a fire in his belly and a story to tell.
The erstwhile PM this week gave a terrifying taste of the likely contents of his upcoming memoir, which promises to be the greatest tale of back-stabbing traitorous bastardry since the Gospel of Luke.
He publicly threw support behind Liberal defector Julia Banks in her bid to topple former stablemate Greg Hunt in Flinders, having quit the party amid widespread “cultural and gender bias, bullying and intimidation” of women in politics.
Turnbull’s supposed voters would have “a very stimulating contest” on their hands, as great globs of viscous revenge slid down his larynx.
The timing of those memoirs could be explosive, but it is unclear whether the spiteful fervour compelling Turnbull’s every move will be enough to knock out a self-indulgent life’s work in time for the May election.
Either way, the prospect of reading this piece of scandalous mudslinging has me randier than Scott Morrison on a spa weekend with Captain Cook.
Banks is refusing to reveal which Liberal MPs were the grubbiest offenders … at least until she gets a book deal of her own, presumably.
And to be fair, you are more likely to bump into an albino peacock at Liberal HQ than a human woman.
The mass exodus of sitting Liberal MPs has biblical overtones, too, as wandering pollies follow Nigel Scullion’s lead and start new lives terrorising wild pigs, ducks and mud crabs.
Julie Bishop is back for another tilt, waiting to clean up the scraps if everything goes awry — but she will have to contend with David Crisafulli and his would-be deputy Dale Last who are understood to be lurking around for armageddon leadership spots.
Amid all this madness, Labor and the Libs would be foolish to discount those renegade parties whose bizarre developments of the past week have been entertaining, if nothing else.
First off the bat is One Nation, whose dyed-in-the-wool voters will be warped in psychological contortions after realising the party’s newest candidate is a Muslim.
Over in Clive Palmer’s dimension, the Chinese invasion schtick of 2014 is back again.
The Bane of Fact-Checkers Everywhere took out a two-minute TV ad slot where he suggested the Chinese Communist Party was pulling the strings in Australia, while plucking numbers out of the ether bottle he seemingly straps beneath his nostrils.
Bob Katter is overdue to say something outrageous, so we will keep an ear out.
Meanwhile Prime Minister Scott Morrison is out there plugging the dorky every-bloke persona, and there is a chance it will work.
The Coalition has been quietly ferreting money away in portfolios over the past six years and has the funds to send out barrels of tender, juicy pork to every corner of the country. Closer the bone, sweeter the meat. Labor, by its very nature, is a danger to itself with rank factionalism capable of undermining what could and should be a clear path to power.
More than that, the complacency that killed Hillary Clinton’s presidential aspirations in 2016 will spell death for the ALP if it continues to glide along without inspiring a sceptical public to believe that massive tax hikes are actually a good thing.
Shorten does not have long before the hangover kicks in — and unless he lays off the lunatic soup long enough to make a real case to Australians, he will be hugging the dunny before he knows it.