The Coalition’s Christmas Vacation Lampooned

Back in July when Joe was shivering under his Bart Simpson doona, he decided it would be heaps of fun to go on holidays with his friends. As he had no actual friends, that meant he had to go away with people from work. The people at work were nice. Mathias and he sometimes sneaked a cigar in the garden and danced together in the office. Fun times!

Joe told his work colleagues his big vacation idea and, as none of them had any friends either, they said they’d come along, but where to go? Clive Palmer had offered them executive suites at Palmersaurus World but Tony didn’t want to hang out with the dinosaurs. Jackie Lambie had banned them from Tasmania, so that left Coffs Harbour. Peta stepped in and got them some luxury apartments and their very own pool boy.

This was the perfect choice. Best of all, their esteemed leader, Tony, could go for a bicycle ride on the Pacific Highway in the truck lane.

But poor Christopher Pyne was upset. He lobbied and petitioned to have the Team Australia vacation in Adelaide but no-one was listening, so he burst into tears and blubbered inconsolably all the way to Coffs .

Apart from him everyone was happy. Especially Barnaby who could go to The Big Banana, his favourite place in the world.

Andrew Robb could gaze at the ocean and think the sea levels weren’t rising.

Julie Bishop could learn to surf the waves of discontent from pretending she didn’t mind that Peta was derailing her career.

Peta herself was happy. She planned to hang in the cabana lounge with the 2015 planner and a pistol.

The rest of Team Australia settled into the bunker, aka the Chairman’s Lounge, with a few bottles of Disappointment Creek Shiraz, a gift from Alan Jones and planned their minibreak.

Their initial idea had been to just spend a few weeks relaxing by the pool, drinking Pina Coladas, taking walks in the rain, just like your average battler. Alas, poor polling numbers meant that Peta told them to pull their finger out and use this valuable vacation time to get out into the countryside and connect with the peeps.

But first things first, Tony had to take off his shirt and compete in the Coffs Classic Ironman Competition.

Tony shimmied into some lycra and Team Australia dutifully cheered on their man, then they retreated to the Chairman’s Lounge, for some more Disappointment Creek Shiraz. Julie tried to open a Margaret River Pinot Grigio but Barnaby said that was for girls, so she sipped stonily on another glass of Disappointment Creek.

Christopher Pyne was the first to crumble. Big tears of disappointment rolled down his puffy cheeks and he wailed and wailed about being bored and petitioned Tony to be allowed back to Adelaide. Peta relented and Christopher clapped his hands with glee and disappeared into the blue afternoon in his Audi A3 never to be seen again, but there was a rumour that he was eaten by bats.

Meanwhile Joe Hockey was anxious to show voters that he cared and understood about their problems.

So he gave his driver the afternoon off and hopped into his Jag and started sweating profusely all over the leather interior and mopping his brow with the sheer effort of driving. He made the mistake of heading into Boambee Beach RSL, where he was kidnapped by old-age pensioners and made to perform sexual favours for the over 80’s. As an impoverished sex worker he was not able to drive far.

Barnaby had no such hangups. He got into his Mercedes 4WD and motored up the Pacific Highway and got out at The Big Banana and knocked back a Pina Colada. Alone. And in the rain. But better than drinking inside with that wet, Malcolm Turnbull.

Speaking of Malcom T, he sat glumly and alone with his Disappointment Creek Shiraz, pondering his bleak future, which didn’t exactly involve homeless cats,  but may as well have, such was Malcolm’s glumness. He changed his online status to “Small L Liberal”, a sackable offence, but Tony, not being a techhead, didn’t find out and the rest of Team Australia had long since blocked him on Twitter.

He got into his private helicopter and journeyed to the nearest upmarket hippy enclave he could think of. Luckily for him, this was Byron Bay. He lobbed into Kerry O’Brien’s pad, and they spent many hours romancing the tome that Kerry was writing about Gough Whitlam. At last Malcom was with his people and he slipped into a silk kimono and started drafting the new Australian constitution.

By this time Julie had had enough and although Peta challenged her to a jelly wrestle, Julie knew she would definitely lose. So she shimmed into a Prado pantsuit and high-tailed it to New York for an assignation with her secret boyfriend, Kevin Rudd.

Man’s man Mathias went mussel collecting and in manner of Harold Holt was never seen again.

Kevin Andrews choked on a pineapple and carked it. Not even Peta’s Heimlich Manoeuvre could save him from the rough end.

Now that she’d got rid of everyone, Peta decided to go to the beach to see her boy complete his Ironman Classic. But when she arrived she saw a sad ripped pair of speedos with the words Team Australia on them. The ABC was there reporting and she could overhear Tony Jones saying, “Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been taken by a drone named Christine Milne”.

At this point Peta peed her pants and was last seen being chased by greenies. Rumour has it she was fed to the new colony as a slave, assigned to the ABC’s new Humpty Doo branch.

The End.

It’s not easy being seen when you’re green

Bob Brown turned a near catatonic voice quality into a cult status, but Christine Milne is having a hard time getting the electorate to get a handle on who she is. Whereas Bob Brown had strangely cool, old-school aura, Christine Milne seems a bit frazzled, a bit harried and constantly on the verge of a cranky rant.

In other words, like the rest of us.

I get there’s a lot to be frazzled, harried, cranky and downright murderous about if you are a greenie leftie pollie from Tassie.

But, turning up for work looking like a dead ringer for a put-upon secondary school principal, who keeps her papers in a supermarket shopping bag that’s flapping in the wind is not going to win votes, hearts or donors. Or media time.

So, what can Christine of the Greens do?

– A complete makeover, starting with a funky haircut, highlights and new set. Of glasses.

– Befriend Clive. Why not? Clive and Al Gore are besties, after all.

– Befriend Jackie. They must have something in common. Fleuro scarves perhaps?

– Maybe some policies that have a chance.

Sure, it’s not easy being green, it shouldn’t be this hard either. Methinks the Greens should go positive and lighten up a bit, more like a minty green, not deep khaki. It is a nice spring-like colour, and their anger, however justified, is not working in voterland and lord knows, we are all in need of a dose of positive politik.

 

 

 

Jackie Lambie is no package deal

Jackie Lambie does a spot-on impression of a bull terrier when she talks tough. Which is all the time, as she is always angry at something whether it be Tony Abbott, tax breaks for millionaires or kale.

Without doubt some people find her a bit scary, loud, bogan, bossy or aggressive. She is no shrinking violet, she’s certainly not waiting around for Edward from Twilight to come and rescue her. Instead she will bear her teeth and kick some butt-ugly butt to get stuff done.

She’s an easy target to lampoon, now that we don’t have Pauline Hansen any more. Jackie Lambie with her 200 hi-vis yellow scarves and her unfiltered and unfettered thought bombs. Her radio interview about her ideal partner being built like Thunder Downunder with a bank balance of Clive Palmer was roundly ridiculed. Her statement that Tony Abbott used his daughters politically was accurate but she was demonised anyway and her other statement about him being a political psychopath was put down by the press corp, they were probably just jealous they hadn’t thought of it.

The press corp don’t really know how to interpret her. They don’t want to be seen to be too sexist, too boganist or too Tasmanian-ist. After all, she knows how to use a gun. They want to be mean, but not too mean, after all she is a PUP, and the media are enthralled by Fat Clive.

So, the media do what they do – pounce on statements about big packages and bank balances, find every utterance she makes about the “puppies”, every barb about Tony Abbott and dress it up as politics when its just run of the mill argey bargey. If she wasn’t Jackie Lambie saying these things, say if it was someone tedious and unknown like say, Darren Chester, it wouldn’t be news.

I get the feeling I don’t fully agree with some of the things Jackie would do if she was Prime Minister for a day. But I do think she should be judged on policies not her sound barks.

And so what if she thinks kale is a carseat or likes big packages, let’s get to policy first before the hi-vis scarves.

The fable of the giant canetoad and the fat man

When Tony Abbott gets into his jim jams at night and hops in the sack, he must surely dream of a time not so long ago, when he made the government look ridiculous.

Those halcyon days when he was Opposition Leader.

Nowadays he is making the government look ridiculous for another reason. He’s in government and the no-surprises-no-excuses government has turned into a big fat disaster. With him at the helm.

The Liberals certainly have kicked some home goals (I’m talking paid parental scheme, GP co-payments, ill-advised winks), but they couldn’t have known that Fat Clive would mess with them so much.

Tony Abbott must be having nightmares about a fat cat in a blue and red checked loose shirt, who despite being a shirt size of XXXXXL is so politically nimble he outmanoeuvres the government at every turn.

No matter what the policy, even the ones Clive Palmer actually likes (free M&Ms to mining magnates for instance) there’s another false start and another rabbit comes out of Clive’s Big Bag of Tricks. He scoffs, he rails, he gives an interview, makes a folksy joke, walks out of another interview and generally throws magic dust at the media.

Meanwhile, the Liberals, Tone E. Abbott, in particular, are looking weak and King Clive reigns over all of us.

It’s surreal to watch the Liberals look chastened. They who looked so masterful and in control the last election now appear to have the political nous of parsnip and are attempting to govern as though they are starring in a Lego movie and Everything is Awesome. The budget is resembling a limp lettuce sandwich and only now, months since the budget was handed down, are they realising they need to sweet-talk the crossbenchers after all.

I do not mean to sound in any way judgemental, but a reasonably intelligent labradoodle could have done a better job at selling the budget.

But, as usual in this wide brown land, we get the government we deserve. If the voters thought that Tony Abbott, with his cane toad eyes and Medieval policies was going to be any good, they too must be dreaming.