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.

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Abbott Peta’s out

It seems Tony has run out of excuses for being a mean, tricky, out-of-touch liar. What to do? Blame sexism.

It’s a deft trick especially from a man who would have invented sexism if he could. And I quote:

‘I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons’

‘I think there does need to be give and take on both sides, and this idea that sex is kind of a woman’s right to absolutely withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man’s right to demand I think they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak’

‘What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up, every year…’

It’s simply not true that Peta is busted over micro-management because she is a woman. What about Mr KRudd? The whole government changed and he lost his crown because of micro-management and control freakery, apparently now known as sexism.

Sure Peta Credlin is being targetted because ministers and backbenchers are frustrated with Tony Abbott and are taking it out on his Chief of Staff. But that’s different to sexism, that’s just frustration because they can’t get a slot in his diary to confront him because of the afore-mentioned micro-management.

Tony seems delighted that Peta is hanging out with him, calling the shots, making decisions that are not hers, but the Prime Minister’s to make. So he should take the ultimate responsibility for his government peta-ing out in the polls. If he has made a blood oath carved in stone and broken it, then it’s his fault, not his right-hand amazon, aka Peta.

Peta is not easy to like. With her penchant for animal print accessories and big bad blow dry, she’s bossing the big boys around and just about telling them when they can and cannot have a toilet break. It’s easy to characterise her as a she-devil Amazon with shoulder-pads and a powerhungry smirk. But it is disingenuous of the Prime Minister to say that if you don’t like her then you are sexist. Especially from a PM who only has one woman in his cabinet, and a track record of putting women down. Sexism about Peta Credlin is not the reason the Abbott government is flailing and pussyfutting around, it’s sheer incompetence and Toni knows it.

 

Julie’s bishop to king square

Julie Bishop is the Abbott government’s not-so-starry eyed performer. She’s also a media darling, but compared with the frumpy Lib Nat front bench, that’s not too hard to pull off, especially when Malcolm in the Middle is looking so glum these days. He’d be so much more handsome if he smiled!

Back to Julie B. With her perfectly coiffed blonde do, fabulous power suits, too-trim-to-be-true physique and surreal stare, she has a certain assured style. But how deserved are the accolades? Harper’s Bazaar Woman of the Year? I mean seriously. What exactly has she done that is not in the portfolio of any foreign minister and that includes K. Rudd, who as it turns out was running a whole other portfolio at the time. (That would be the portfolio of Revenge).

Back to Woman of the Year. Swanning around the world looking glam and making the odd speech condemning terrorism ain’t so hard. In terms of putting Vlad on the spot, did she? As far as I’m aware we are no closer to access, admission or apology than had she not affixed her ballsy blue eyes on him.  And now it seems she is anyone’s girl, anything that needs fixing – let’s see now, Victorian election, nuclear energy and any other old barnacle that Tony Abbott wants to throw her way, she’s out there spruiking. Hardly a girl who knows her own mind, I say!

I reckon that if she is ever given a less popular portfolio (NBN springs to mind) she suddenly wouldn’t be all kudos and goodwill and press fascination. Of course, this probably won’t be tested as Tony doesn’t do reshuffles. In the meantime Jules is being a good girl and kowtowing the party line. Of course every girl needs a male chaperon to take her to the big climate talks in Lima. She couldn’t possibly be trusted to do that on her own.

Abbott knows that she’s more popular than him, and probably the only cabinet minister that is both competent and palatable to the public but he’s staying put. If Jules wants to be top dog in the top job, then she’ll have to knock off the biggest barnacle of them all (her boss). Bishop to Queen 6. Checkmate.

And the caravan rolls on for Claudia Karvan

Claudia Karvan seems like a reasonable actress. Especially if you like your characters middle-class, uptight and on every show you watch on the telly.

I have nothing against Ms Karvan, but it does seem that she is getting the lion’s share of Aussie actress roles. Everything that is coming out now has her name on it: Puberty Blues and Time of Our Lives. Before then it was Love My Way and Secret Lives of Us and before that it was Heartbreak High (her best role yet!).

It’s not that I dislike Claudia Karvan or think her acting is particularly good or bad. It’s just that for some reason, she is now considered a fabulous actress, who must be in any quality TV series. Need a wannabee yummy mummy – no problem, book Claudia. Need a stressed-out teacher – here’s Claudia. Need a doctor, Claudia’s free. Need someone to not show emotion. Show Claudia (I mean the could just hire Julie Bishop but that’s a whole other blog). Need someone to act hysterical, here’s Claudia (again).

I’m pretty sure there must be other actresses around who could do an equally good or better job and who are not getting a look in, because, well just because.

If Claudia really is the only one in Australia who can do hysterical helicopter mom, then so be it, the gig is hers. But I’ve got a feeling quite a few actors can do annoyed and I’d like to see them given a red hot go.