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Malcolm turns up the bull

AS PUBLISHED IN INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIA

JOURNALIST: Mr Turnbull, you are now staring at 33 consecutive Coalition Newspoll losses in a row. This surpasses Abbott’s 30 losses you used as a benchmark trigger for your successful leadership coup in 2015, does it not?

TURNBULL: Yes that’s true, but I recently expressed regret for leveraging that number 30. I won the spill and got to be Prime Minister — that’s all I care about. If you in the media think the number 30 is to be my nemesis, you are sadly delusional. I, on the other hand, am happily delusional.

JOURNALIST: Oh my God!

TURNBULL: Indeed. God willing, the Coalition would win the next Newspoll if only the public would start listening to me. Maybe they get distracted by my charisma and tune out in stunned awe of me?

JOURNALIST: Maybe your credibility is already ruined?

TURNBULL: I have apologised. For a prime minister to be so humbly apologetic is so refreshing in the public eye. So, my credibility has benefited from my brilliant bleeding-heart expression of remorse.

JOURNALIST: Are you surprised at your poor performance?

TURNBULL: Worse than surprised, I would say shocked. I did not expect to lose even one poll. By the way, how dare you call my performance “poor”?

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Cash for trash and the Joyce affair: System bites the dust

AS PUBLISHED IN INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIA

Our key instititions have failed us miserably.

Displacement looms for our wombat population as countless Australians seek out their holes to crawl into.

It is so hopeless that extrication from society seems the only option for anyone with a social conscience. Trust has bitten the dust and politicians are the major culprits.

One could have wistfully hoped that with the start of a new year, 2018 would bring just a modicum of improvement in the standard of federal government. Senator Michaelia Cash put an end to that and now we pessimistically await the next exercise in trashing our Parliamentary system.

The shenanigans surrounding Member for New England Barnaby Joyce and his pregnant ex-staffer were dreadful and the nation cringed in disbelief on many levels — betrayal of family, hypocrisy and appalling judgement. Behaviour behind closed doors was the root cause of Barnaby’s undoing.

Conversely, doors were wide open when Cash shamelessly launched her vitriolic attack in response to Labor Senator Doug Cameron, who had questioned the appointment of Cash’s new chief of staff.

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The fallout from the Barnaby affair

AS PUBLISHED IN INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIA

Politicians cannot be trusted.

Tell us something we don’t know, you are saying.

Yes, it is a given, but the scandal surrounding Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and his pregnant extramarital partner Vikki Campion is about far more than trust. It encapsulates what is so wrong with our political and media modus operandi.

It is a minefield of personal failings on the part of the Nationals leader. It is a mainstream media disgrace.

Terms that have been bandied about in relation to Joyce’s conduct include inflated ego, betrayal, hypocrisy, deception, disingenuousness, cynicism, self-interest and poor self-control. We would expect that with high office comes a heightened cognisance of personal accountability. We might as well expect fairies at the bottom of the garden.

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