Strange Politics: Barnaby gets carp help from Trump

IMAGINE being a low-grade spy holed up in an airtight surveillance van for a week, vainly trying to listen in on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull

IMAGINE being a low-grade spy holed up in an airtight surveillance van for a week, vainly trying to listen in on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's encrypted private phone calls.

The tech-savvy leader's emails and metadata are all white noise and after seven tedious days, surrounded by empty two-minute noodle packets and paper coffee cups, you are ready to hang up your headset and go back to cutting sugarcane on your uncle's farm.

This was not why you got into the espionage industry.

Just as you are about to call up Uncle Silvio to ask about this year's crop, the phone rings.

The Agency director himself is on the blower, telling you Malcolm is nicking off to Malaysia to commemorate the invention of the USB flash drive, and Barnaby Joyce is your new target.

Finally, some worthwhile treason!

Days pass without anything of note: plenty of non-encrypted chatter about the drought, beef prices and his deep loathing of any dog shorter than knee height.

"Might as well have smuggled a couple of starving squirrels over the border, the preening bloody show pony," he lets slip.

Then finally something juicy comes along.

Bane of the Western World and terror of the rest, President Donald Trump, sounds mighty impatient.

"Barna-who? How the hell did you get this number?" the Great Overcomb snarls.

"Is this Obama again? Get a job."

Finally Joyce smoothes out the wrinkles and gets the billionaire's undivided attention.

"The reason I'm calling, Mr President, is we've been trying to thin out our feral carp population by giving herpes to a few million of the damned beasts," he explains.

"I heard you had some experience in that area."

Dumbfounded, you do a quick Google search and learn Trump once boasted of how he used to bed so many beautiful women that venereal disease was his "own personal Vietnam".

"You've come to the right place, Barnapple," the orange-skinned leader of the free world brags.

"Here's what you want to do."

The conversation eventually disintegrates into yelps of "caaaarp" and "I love Hispanics, really I do" but not before the walking hairpiece thanks Joyce for his previous dealings with Johnny Depp.

"Can't stand that liberal wimp. You're okay in my books, Bananaski. What's that, Russian?"

That cane-cutting job is looking better than ever.

-ARM NEWSDESK

Originally published as Strange Politics: Barnaby gets carp help from Trump