SMOKE, MIRRORS & RAINBOWS

As the ABC telecast of Malcolm Turnbull’s address in reply faded from the screen , most of his colleagues - but not that grimacing backbencher, that Phantom of the Opera , Peter Costell0 – were seen to applaud . Then Costello bolted from the building, pushing in front of pollies lined up for a free limo.

Was his haste due to an intention to launch an immediate leadership challenge or a desire to check the positions vacant in the banana republic of Kiribas where there is a grave shortage of legal wigs ? Ambitious Bronwyn Bishop, with a memory as strong as a wounded pachyderm , also expressed criticism of Malcolm’s tax on fags.

Throughout Malcolm’s flowery speech it seemed that fellow sitting behind him to his right , a pained haemorrhoid induced expression on his face, needed to visit a private hospital as soon as possible to ease the agony. ODD NOTE : Readers will recall how we said Paul Keating had described Treasurer Costello as having been hit in the a**e by a rainbow during the mining boom. Well, the bean bag Shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, has just said the Rudd government was hit by a rainbow when it came into office and there was a surplus. The point of impact was not defined .

THINGS WE HEAR

From various informants, we publish these intriguing items that you have not heard about in the local media...

1. Will the person who left that horrible blood red deposit in the manager’s loo at Bunnings , Bagot Road, please contact a doctor asap ? Or else, insert a grafted mango to ease the flow .

2. Were those police officers climbing over the locked high fence of a Nightcliff residence belonging to a person recently mentioned in a court case covered in the NT News rehearsing for a Spiderman movie?

3. The departure south of the border of a person from a powerful statutory organisation may have some interesting repercussions after six months have transpired.

4. The new Kiwi head of Royal Darwin Hospital should look into the problem of noisy wards . Trying to sleep is hard with visitors and some patients yahooing, yelling and making a nuisance of themselves. Try and escape the hubbub by moving outside and sitting in the sun and you run the gauntlet of being asked for fags or money.

PIERRE TAKES FRENCH LEAVE

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ET TU,BRONWYN ?++++++++++++++

Despite regular church attendance , there is a wicked , unchristian streak in Kevin Rudd . Fancy Kevin asking if Malcolm Turnbull is about to start selling steak knives . The PM knows full well the last thing Turnbull would do at the present moment is let his troops near a canteen of cutlery . The tired eyed old brigade of the Coalition is conspiring against him, some of the Melbourne Club string pullers are unhappy about their diminished influence , blatantly ambitious younger Libbers are jockeying for positions of influence in the event of Malcolm’s exit, be it of his own volition or due to a samurai sword wielding assassin on a misty Canberra morn.

It has been surprising indeed to hear criticism of Turnbull from an almost forgotten person once trumpeted as a potential PM, Bronwyn Bishop. She branded him as soft , the public not knowing what the Coalition stands for . Could she be positioning herself for a key position in the Coalition -perhaps even leadership of the party ? Some three decades or more ago , a frequenter of Sydney's Angel Place coffee shops , the bouffant and neatly frocked Bishop openly told members of the legal profession she intended to become the Prime Minister of Australia.

In a Rudd one term government scenario , a prospect which causes some Tories to wet their jodhpurs , Bronwyn could perhaps sweep into power. A true fairy-tale ending to rival any week in sport reports, replete with fairy godmothers , torn groins, hammies, and miracles .

For Bronwyn to rise to the top of the political slippery ladder at this late stage it would be similar to Lazarus coming back from a triple by-pass and a bad dose of swine flu with Bob Ellis as her campaign manager.

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BOGUS FINANCIAL CREDENTIALS

After the revelations of Peter Hartcher’s book ,To the Bitter End, the Coalition will surely not again dare to shriek like the witches of Macbeth that it is a better handler of the economy than the ALP . The signs aren’t promising though what with Malcolm Turnbull, Joe Hockey and the rest of the Nuns' Chorus variously chanting Rudd is spending like a drunken sailor or like Santa on steroids. Ho,ho,ho-merry mixed metaphors all round,including us.

The book and interviews with author Hartcher, political editor of the Sydney Morning Herald , revealed that Prime Minister Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello , pretending to be a a dynamic duo working in tandem, played ducks and drakes with the economy and each other . Treasury was instructed to keep the PM in the dark and Howard made announcements affecting the public purse without informing his buddy . Seems one helluva way to run an economy.

The mining boom enabled Costello to revel in the false illusion that he was a grand treasurer. Despite the massive revenue , hospitals , schools, roads , universities and major infrastructure projects were short changed. As usual , Paul Keating, with his exquisite command of pungent commentary, is on record as saying the facially contorted treasurer had been “ hit in the a*se with a rainbow ”. In more genteel language, this meant the government received pots of gold , not due to any action by Costello, the keeper of the exchequer not welcome by the PM to even use the tradesmen’s entrance at Kirribilli House.

CIA TEENY BOPPERS !!!

Please , please inform Little Darwin that those screaming females - waving , leaping up and down and beaming like loons - were not employed by the Central Intelligence Agency when President Barack Obama visited CIA headquarters. If those hysterical people were actual CIA operatives , not schoolgirls, interns or celebrity mad groupies , then it is easy to see why garrulous Fidel Castro survived 628 ½ attempts to knock him off.

How the CIA allowed such a bizarre reception for the most powerful man on earth beggars belief . Any maddie watching the telecast would have written the CIA off as a branch of the Jerry Springer or Oprah show.

NEGLECTED MAY DAY WARRIORS

Mark Latham was a talented True Believer of the real ALP during his time in politics . To its detriment , the party repeatedly disregarded his scholarly research , policy development and forthright views in his attempts to bring modern Third Way approaches to present issues and the constipated political system .

He was , unfortunately, treated by the party in much the same way as Barry Jones. His book, The Latham Diaries, Melbourne University Press , 2005, is an extraordinary insight into the malaise of Australian politics . In his books and numerous newspaper columns, he outlined ways to combat poverty and how to reform the education system to empower people and social entrepreneurs to advance the community.

It is interesting to note that Kevin Rudd took a personal interest in attacking poverty and the government has just announced a major education plan. It is to be hoped that a taxi load of Latham’s views on internal party reform and other social issues are adopted or incorporated in the future. Of course, his influence will not be acknowledged by the party.