By Tony Wright
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Truss, Robb and Ruddock. Could there be a better name for a political consultancy?
No, wait. Scrub Ruddock. Already taken. Overboard, really. Special Envoy on Human Rights. Seriously. Studying his own Pacific Solution from the First Class cabin of a 747 en route to the United Nations in New York.
It's been a big week for farewells from the Turnbull government. You could just about close down parliament for a week or two with all the valedictories piling up for the elder statesmen on their way out.
Thursday was devoted to the gentlemen of the place. Warren Truss. Andrew Robb. Hankies fluttering everywhere, eyes dabbed.
Hold on. They're not actually leaving; not yet.
No. These are sort of pre-farewells, early clearing notices of the elders to allow Malcolm Turnbull to shuffle his ministry and insert new blood. The gold watches are yet to come.
Don't mention the gold watches! Or blood. Not with Stuart Robert still sitting there, all those questions about just how many gold watches a Chinese billionaire glad-handler laid upon him - $40,000 a pop and he thought they were fake, naturally. And, of course, the matter of a trip to China to witness a signing ceremony for a mining deal between Australian company Nimrod Resources, owned by a mate, and a Chinese business, which is just the sort of thing a Human Services and Veterans Affairs Minister would do.
The farewells might not be over, obviously.
Best not to sully the festival of farewells with Mr Roberts' travails of course, unless you happen to be Bill Shorten, who showed a wonderful capacity for switching seamlessly between loving praise for Truss and Robb and a skewering of Robert and Turnbull's failure to sack him.
Truss, you understand, will be around until the election, which will give everyone time to know that he was deputy prime minister for the past two and a half years, and was National Party leader since 2007. Such a modest gentleman much of Australia barely noticed.
Everyone on all sides of the political fence spoke well of him. Won't see the quiet like of him again, particularly now he's being replaced by Barnaby Joyce. Barnaby. Deputy Prime Minister. Unlikely anyone will fail to notice.
And Andrew Robb. Lion of the Free Trade Agreements. Robb isn't about to rush off, either. He's got another Free Trade Agreement to complete, this one with India. To add to those he's notched up with China, Korea and Japan. Talk about a quiet achiever! You'd kill to have him in a consultancy, though he's not giving away precisely what his next career holds.
Won't see the quiet like of him again, particularly now he's being replaced by Barnaby Joyce.
Should the dream shingle of Truss, Robb and Ruddock ever be hung out - and really, don't hold your breath - Robb would be barely more than the boy. He's only 64. Truss is 67. Ruddock is 72.