If a week is a long time in politics, then eight days is an eternity in optimism
Jobs and Innovation Minister Michaelia Cash’s press conference on February 15:
Cash: (Barnaby) Joyce has addressed all of these issues … There’s a lot of white noise in this place but I am not being distracted by it.
Journalist: Hasn’t the Deputy PM distracted the government’s agenda or policy agenda for the week though?
Cash: At the end of the day you guys report what you guys report.
The end has been a long time coming. From James Jeffrey’s Sketch in The Australian on February 16:
Once upon a time, Paul Keating handed down his memorable — if premature — verdict on John Howard: “What we have got is a dead carcass, swinging in the breeze, but nobody will cut it down to replace him.” Yesterday was an ambitious step forward from a carcass, with question time doubling as the world’s first autopsy on a living organism … When it was done, Joyce got up and ambled away from the frontbench for possibly the last time. Then into question time’s surreal afterglow burst an announcement from Turnbull’s office, inviting journalists to hear him damn Joyce’s “shocking error of judgment” … Making it clear Joyce was the Nationals’ problem to solve, Turnbull urged him to go off on his leave and “reflect”. Translated in the kindest terms, this amounted to handing him a shotgun and directions to the Sam Dastyari Memorial Back Paddock, a place where nothing swings and no breeze blows.
Barnaby Joyce on Twitter, September 7, 2013:
Thank goodness that is over.
It’s always worse somewhere else. The Daily Mail, January 13:
Disgraced Missouri Governor Eric Greitens denies slapping his married mistress in a hospital while his wife was giving birth after the woman told him she had sex with her husband.
Away from the Nationals, at least things are looking groovy in the Coalition’s other party. Tony Abbott in The Australian yesterday:
One thing I am not going to cop is gratuitous criticism from ministers who are only in government because I led them there. It is the prime minister’s right to choose his ministerial team and, given some of the policies of this government, I’m happy to serve on the backbench.
Laura Jayes on The Daily Telegraph website yesterday:
The reaction to Mr Abbott’s piece of catharsis has been cutting. From one minister who is of course “only in government because Abbott led him there”: “F..k him. He’s a dog-whistling piece of shit”. Another said: “He thinks he’s half clever when he deliberately throws red meat, then tries to dress it up as an intellectual argument.”
Abbott in The Australian yesterday:
You’d think a government that’s lost the past 27 Newspolls might be curious about how it could lift its game.
And surely Abbott is the one most experienced to dole out advice. Turnbull on September 14, 2015:
The one thing that is clear about our current situation is the trajectory. We have lost 30 Newspolls in a row. It is clear that the people have made up their mind about Mr Abbott’s leadership.
Bill Shorten, who helped overthrow a sitting prime minister in his first term, during his press conference yesterday:
Australians, when you look at the soap opera in Canberra in particular, racking the government — wrecking the government right now, they’re so over politicians it’s not funny.