Australia’s focus should be on Hockeyroos not Treasurer Joe Hockey’s new book

ONLY three events have even come close to nudging the shooting down of MH17 from the headlines, the opening of the Commonwealth Games, the launch of Joe Hockey’s premature biography and Jacqui Lambie’s gross remarks about her sexual needs.Predictably, our sports team has been doing well though the gold has not always fallen to those who were expected to shine.

Former journalist Madonna King’s authorised Hockey book has been lapped up sections of the media not usually known for their affection for the Coalition and has raised eyebrows within the Coalition. The big question is why Hockey assisted any author at such a relatively early stage of his political life. One Budget does not a Treasurer make, and it would appear that Hockey wasn’t even that happy with the form his first Budget did take. He, like, me would have preferred to see a much tougher budget, a budget to meet the demands of the Audit Commission’s thorough report and match Hockey’s own stated goal of ending the age of entitlement. His cooperation in this work with its hints of insider gossip and breathless tales of the sort of rivalry common within Cabinet circles smacks of an appalling lack of political judgment — or seriously bad advice. Hockey has stressed that he sought guidance from Prime Minister Tony Abbott before embarking upon the project but it would have been impossible for Abbott to knock the project on the head without triggering a cascade of leaks which would have inevitably claimed that he was jealously thwarting the ambitions of a possible rival. The ABC and Fairfax, who regard Hockey as a soft alternate to hardliner Abbott would not have been able to restrain their glee. While it is understandable, indeed, admirable, of Hockey to want to acknowledge his wonderful parents and family, his role in assisting preparation of the precipitate biography smacks of immaturity. As for Clive Palmer and his PUPpies, with only seven actual sitting days behind them, they have become as irritating as Anslem Douglas’s pop song “Who let the dogs out”. That number was ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as third most annoying song in a 2007 poll identifying the 20 worst. It was first on Spinner’s 2008 list of Top 20 Worst Songs Ever and second on an AOL Radio list of the 100 Worst Songs Ever. To have managed to reach such an abysmal comparable rating in such a short period of time may well be the PUPs greatest accomplishment when their limited appeal runs out. The PUPs policy flip-flops indicated a total lack of principle. The senators appeared, in their first parliamentary outing to represent an undisciplined party without conviction, their goal being solely to seek attention and create diversion. Just like that of their founder, the sometime miner, sometime tourism advocate, sometime dinosaur promoter and momentary Titanic enthusiast, Clive Palmer, who has now been accused by his Chinese partners of “fraud” and “dishonesty”. But just as Palmer has done little of note politically apart from buying a pulpit from which to berate the Liberal National Party and Queensland Premier Campbell Newman, and others he imagines owe him favours, the PUP senators, Dio Wang, Glen Lazarus and Jacqui Lambie, have shown themselves to be as confused about their purpose as they are about parliamentary process. In the middle of their sole sitting week, the PUPpies didn’t even turn up for Senate Question Time. Lazarus briefly entered the senate chamber to engage in a brief discussion but left almost immediately. Minutes earlier Lambie demonstrated the fecklessness of her party’s position and her own intellectual weakness when she delivered a trademark rant on suicides in the military, the cost of doing business in Tasmania, and the loss of CSIRO jobs in Tasmania. As tragically distressing all suicides are, and particularly those which can be attributed to the stresses of serving in the military, the scale of ADF suicide is considerable lower than experienced in the services of other nations. Tasmania’s economic malaise can largely be blamed on the policies of past Labor-Green state governments, and not solely on the cost of transport to the island state, and the loss of CSIRO jobs there is due to an overhaul of the organisation’s structure. Lambie also delivered a prepared speech so different in structure to her earlier words that it must have been prepared by others, in all probability, staff of the rogue Maritime Union of Australia. It certainly parroted all the lines the MUA has been pushing in its campaigns for a 40 per cent increase for deckhands employed at Port Hedland, and its fight against skilled foreign workers on offshore oil and gas rigs. But when the vote on the issue was taken the PUP senators didn’t vote. The MUA was supported by Labor and the Greens. But, hey, the MUA wants a huge package and Lambie likes big packages. Maybe she went into politics to give rein to her fantasies.