HE OF THE NEVER NEVER

No sooner had Little Darwin described rubber- faced Peter Costello as being from the back of beyond , the miffed backbencher has popped up here in Darwin . Whatever for ? He is no shadow minister, just the Coalition’s Phantom of the Opera, lurking with third degree burns in the mouldy back row of parliament house. Given that he tenaciously represents his electorate , deep in the Victorian swine flu belt, it is to be hoped he has not become a carrier and is endangering the health and fabulous lifestyle of Top Enders by gracing us with his presence. On air in Darwin, he seemed feverish when it came to the subject of the Prime Minister. Kevin Rudd , he said, is deliberately using slang to pass himself off as a true- blue Aussie yobbo - instead of a defrocked Presbyterian minister seen keeping close company with a dark- haired skinny sheila, probably a pole dancer from a gentlemen’s club, whose name is Jean Shrimpton , and wears shocking mini- skirts to the Melbourne Cup, causing horses to bolt and old governors –general to break wind , totter about corporate boxes , and be swabbed .

Costello has two weeks to go to indicate whether or not he intends standing again in the seat of Higgins. Thus his Territory visit may not have been a way of escaping pestiferous Melbourne, but part of a last hurrah . Nevertheless, the tip is that the anti- Turnbull forces dearly want Costello to stay ,so he may just hang on in there , hoping to eventually receive the Coalition's gunmetal orb and sceptre.

STOP PRESS : Costello is quitting , his political ambition to become the nation's top banana utterly squashed like a Tasmanian possum run over by a logging truck heading for Gunns mill .