Angus Taylor’s plight energises Labor as party smells blood

On the political strife scale, Energy Minister Angus Taylor sits somewhere between “embattled” and “former”.

Scott Morrison gave the perpetually scandal-adjacent Taylor a pity pat on the back as he began his perp walk past the press out of a bruising question time. It was a scene reminiscent of the dying days of the Turnbull government when Morrison put his arms around his former boss and declared: “I’m ambitious for him!”

For the moment, the Prime Minister is backing his man … despite the NSW Police Force launching an official investigation dubbed Strike Force Garrad.

“The Urban Dictionary has a very interesting definition of ‘garrad’,” Labor deputy leader Richard Marles told the chamber. “You ought to go and have a look at it!”

Taking the bait, we powered up our search engine of choice for a lookie-loo. And, by golly, the result is not for the faint of heart!

“The dumbest motherf..ker in the whole land,” was the site’s top definition (with 11 thumbs up and two thumbs down from users). “A huge douchebag” and “a dirty nonce” were also offered as alternative explanations.

Who knew Marles worked so blue? To add to the awkward, the naming snafu comes a week after NSW police sent a memo to officers instructing them to carefully research the “random” names allocated to their investigations on Google and Urban Dictionary to “avoid using a name that might offend people”.

After an afternoon of Labor’s attempts to cause maximum disruption — including a question time walkout by backbenchers and a stunt to shut down the Federation Chamber — Anthony Albanese was left to lean into the microphone: “This minister must go! This minister must go!”

Labor had obviously used up its best lines on Monday when Mark Butler belted out: “What I find utterly baffling is that no one appears to have asked the question: how could 10 councillors spend $14m on domestic travel in a year? Do some basic maths. If you’re a Rhodes scholar, you could do the maths.”

Butler continued: “There are 10 councillors; it’s pretty easy to divide figures by 10. This equals $28,000 per councillor every single week on domestic travel, which I work out as being 20 return trips to Melbourne and six or seven business-class return trips to Perth every single week for every single councillor across the entire year … Why didn’t someone say, ‘I think we need to check these figures?’.”

Tony Burke added: “And this is from someone who, we are told — and from time to time it gets reported — is one of the most talented members of the government.”

As it became clear Taylor was staying put, Speaker Tony Smith became fed up with Labor’s interruptions and started handing out early marks to MPs.

Smith warned Mark Dreyfus: “Don’t say a thing for the next hour. OK? … If people want to start taking bets, they can. But that’s what I’ve asked.”