The Sketch: Michaelia Cash makes a hash of her whiteboard entry

Michaelia Cash walks behind a whiteboard as she arrives at Senate estimates. Picture: Seven News.

There was a joke back in the day stating that while America had Johnny Cash, Bob Hope and Stevie Wonder, Australia had no cash, no hope, and no bloody wonder. Well, that was then.

These days we have Michaelia Cash and, thanks to her efforts this week, a growing sense of wonder.

The first instalment came on Wednesday in the shape of what Tony Abbott has already gently diagnosed as the Jobs Minister’s “brain snap”: Cash being quizzed by Labor senator Doug Cameron in Senate estimates about her new chief of staff, and Cash threatening to go off like the sexual innuendo equivalent of a cluster bomb.

Come question time yesterday, Malcolm Turnbull posited the theory that Cash, who generally seems as delicate as a Viking raid, had been bullied by Cameron. Then as question time lumbered ahead with Labor asking more about media tip-offs about police raids on union offices (pretty much the reason Cash ended up in the market for a new staff member), word began filtering into the House of Representatives that Cash had just starred in another escapade.

To wit: entering Senate estimates behind the flimsy shield that was a whiteboard, one so hilariously small for the intended purpose it had the daftness of a Steve Fielding stunt.

Not since Keating government minister Ros Kelly has a whiteboard become so synonymous with a federal minister. Maybe it will pan out better for Cash.

Even one of Parliament House’s gentlest, most sweetly natured observers was later found near where the whiteboard had been abandoned like a getaway car, eyes wide with wonder and observing, “These people are f..king idiots.”

There is of course a fine line between stupidity and courage, one that isn’t always clear in the heat of the moment.

Justice Minister Michael Keenan was surely leaning towards the latter end of the spectrum when, irked by the cascade of queries about those raids, he sought to sidestep the most basic reality of the enterprise: it’s called question time. “Mr Speaker,” he began, indicating Labor members, “I am not going to be cross-examined by him and neither will I be cross-examined by him, and in fact, I won’t be cross-examined by any of them …”

Tony Burke posed the necessary question: “Should we continue with question time ever?” “Well,” replied Speaker Tony Smith, “I am going to continue with question time.”

And so they marched ever farther down this roaring spiral of futility, a reminder that while the pendulum of parliament does sometimes swing towards one of its guises — a place of hard work and largely honest purpose — it does lean strongly toward the other: basically a funfair in an abyss.

But shout as they might, they’d all been outdone by Cash with her simple reminder actions speak louder than words.

Anyway, that’s the wonder and Cash taken care of. That just leaves hope.