Imagine this. Peter Slipper, Liberal MP is fast losing favour with his peers. Their leader, Tony Abbott, admits to looking for ways to get rid of him. Mr Slipper meets a young man called James Ashby and feels an attraction. He attempts to persuade Mr Ashby to come and work for him. But the young man quite likely perceives that Slipper’s on the wane, and maybe not such a good prospect for on-going employment.
Then, by a bizarre convergence of bizarre circumstances outwardly set in motion when the ALP gave Kevin Rudd the flick but undoubtedly in play long before any of us punters were aware of such machinations, Peter Slipper finds himself, courtesy of the ALP, in the Speaker’s Chair in the House of Representatives, reborn, newly robed and now in a position to give those who would have seen him gone the big finger.
Suddenly Mr Ashby wants that job. Now, this could well be because Mr Ashby is possessed of a healthy ambition, and Slipper’s sudden elevation makes working for him a whole other thing, as they say in The West Wing. But imagine another scenario. The LNP, finally rid of Slipper in one sense as he resigns and becomes an Independent, may feel itself outwitted by the Gillard government’s nifty move, quite likely highly aggravated, and chafing under Slipper’s authority at Question Time.
So somebody sets a honey trap. Slipper has a record of complaints of alleged sexual harassment against him. There’s allegedly video of him in an “intimate” situation with a young man on a bed. He’s already expressed more than a passing interest in Mr Ashby. So now might be a very good time for Mr Ashby to accept that job offer, mightn’t it? Who knows what might come of it? It could even bring down the government.
The subsequent text messages and emails indicate Mr Slipper’s interest in Mr Ashby, which was interpreted by Mr Ashby as sexual harassment. The matter is now subject to civil proceedings.
My primary objection to the honey trap option is that I find it hard to believe the Coalition has the brains to put this together. But they might have hired consultants.
If this was The West Wing Peter Slipper would know that his duty was not to himself but to the men and women who saved him from mediocrity and obscurity. He would recognise that for him to reappear in the Speaker’s Chair when Parliament sits next (yes, I know, they are two entirely different systems of government but suspend disbelief) will be nothing short of farcical, and will set in motion a series of events that could well see the country under the leadership of the Dark One. If this was The West Wing, Slipper would sacrifice anything to avoid that outcome, especially his short-lived career as Speaker. He would stand aside until all allegations against him are dealt with.
In The West Wing everybody has their fair share of flaws from POTUS down. But what binds them is their goal: to keep POTUS where he is. They manage to overcome all personal differences, scandals, and weaknesses in their pursuit of this goal. This is what eventually drove me nuts about the show, but I could be wildly wrong. That tight-knit group gathered round Jed Bartlet seem to lack malice and ego. Even in their most flawed moments they convey a fundamental decency and an inherent capacity for redemption. I find this unrealistic, and just too damn sweet for my taste, but then I love Tony Soprano.
However, as someone pointed out the other day, in the cut throat race to become Presidential Candidate all manner of mud is slung, and many arrows fired. When it’s over, everyone gets behind the chosen one because getting your party into the White House supercedes personal rivalry, hatred, ambition and apparently most human flaws. Bartlett’s merry band of quippers take this to another level and seem to care for one another better than even Jesus’s disciples. As someone who grew up in the shadow of the Australian political system I’m calling bollocks on that.
However, there’s no doubt we could do with a bit of this kind of loyalty in Australian politics. Peter Slipper has the opportunity to demonstrate how it’s done. He owes the Gillard government big time. They took a punt on him when everybody else was plotting his downfall. It’s not their fault it turned sour. The most ethical move available to Slipper at this point is to quietly withdraw until the civil proceedings have been resolved and if this was The West Wing, he’d have announced it already.
As far as the civil proceedings are concerned, it may well be that the last thing the LNP wants is to see them fought out in court. Awkward questions will no doubt be asked of James Ashby, such as who briefed him on Slipper’s alleged peccadilloes in 2003 and why? Who is financing the court action? How much simpler if the government falls, the Dark One leads his people into the Lodge, and the civil case is quietly withdrawn, never to be heard of again?
Of course with the exception of President Bartlet The West Wing crowd aren’t politicians, perhaps this is the difference. But wait. The episode I watched last night featured a rather nasty Republican hell-bent on unearthing an ancient scandal about White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry. At the last minute he was confronted by a Good Republican Man who told him muckraking was killing their party and it had to stop. The nasty man’s efforts were thwarted. I did not find this believable. I’m sorry. I did not.
No Place For Sheep 
Whoa! According to google, “the west wing” is a TV show.
The suggestion that the Liberal party “hasn’t the brains to put together a honey trap” is not the author’s finest hour.
It is of course, always possible that the accused, you know, actually DID drop the hard word on a young man. All by himself, without any prompting.
Anyway, the cabcharge fiasco is likely to overshadow any horniness the old goat may have exhibited, if the most recent developments are anything to go by.
Mildly interesting times ahead.
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Agreed, Steve. The Slipper thing is the direct result of the Gillard government trying (again) to be too clever and slippery by half. That’s not to say an Abbott government would be an unalloyed benefit. But the bottom line here (sorry!) is that Labor, for all the wrong reasons, is desperate the find a way to stay in office. Eventually the electorate will sort out that issue.
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“But the bottom line here (sorry!) is that Labor, for all the wrong reasons, is desperate the find a way to stay in office.” This is pure Liberal spin. The real bottom line is that Abbott will do anything and say anything to become PM.
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Thanks for the response silkworm, but if it’s pure Liberal spin that’s pure coincidence. I’m not a paid-up Liberal or rusted on in any way 🙂 And the fact is Abbott doesn’t have to do anything to become PM. Gillard’s doing all his work for him. The politics of vacuity is very irritating, however.
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From my perspective, the bottom line is that the news media is either too lazy or too interested in regime change to do anything other than speculate on potential scandal and rerun simplistic debates that avoid getting into anything of any consequence.
… and that a vast majority of consumers are apparently satisfied with this arrangement.
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DontSueMeMTR: I wouldn’t argue with your assessment. We live in an age of political poverty, don’t we?
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“And the fact is Abbott doesn’t have to do anything to become PM. Gillard’s doing all his work for him.”
More Liberal bullshit. This whole Slipper business flared up when Gillard left the country and Abbott used this opportunity to pin it all on her.
There’s a better perspective on it here:
http://andrewelder.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/abbott-and-slipper.html
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I think you meant “a different perspective.” Whatever the arguments – and counter-arguments – the Slipper appointment was always a dodgy deal. That it has blown up in the government’s face is no surprise at all. I’m not making a partisan point, simply stating the blindingly obvious. Another blindingly obvious thing is that, as usual in the venalities of the daily political biffo, there are no angels present in this ridiculous snafu.
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The point is, he knowingly put himself in harm’s way.
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I favour the honey trap scenario. Nothing will come of this but it will live until the next election. Combined with the Thomson affair (another nothing issue) the punters will have a clear impression that the government is dysfunctional and morally bankrupt. The surplus wont matter. Unfortunately they will learn a harsh lesson when the truly morally bankrupt bible-believing scum infest the government benches.
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Agree, but I still hope for a better result : surely the voting public cannot be so benighted as to vote for this rag-tag collection masquerading as an alternative government?
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I am sick of the morons assuming that because the media say something it must be true.
The reality is that the journo who started the lies keeps changing his story.
Just like he did when he cooked up the Grech affair.
It might shock the trolls but everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
And do you notice the civil suit thing has virtually gone away so they concentrate on things that are just not possible.
Each MP has an entitlement of $20,000 per annum in local travel expenses if they don’t have their own car.
So who the fuck could any MP rort a cabcharge? It’s a legal entitlement, and the only way the things can be rorted is if the driver changes the amount and pockets the change.
but wait, they all have to be verified by the offices of the special minister of state which are in every state.
I know the drill, I used to work for a senator.
the real reason is RUPERT IS IN THE POO.
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Tony Abbott has a hide trying to play the “I’m more concerned than you are about sexual harassment” card. When he says Julia Gillard doesn’t care enough about sexual harassment, he is sneakily making the presumption that sexual harassment has occurred, and those of us who aren’t trolls know that he is doing it all for his own political purposes.
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What’s more , isn’t it very convenient that Ashby kept all those deeply upsetting and hateful texts and emails?
It is a coincidence which reminds me of Monica Lewinski keeping the dress with Clinton’s semen on it, still uncleaned after some months . . .
The published details of the allegations are truly pathetic, and deserve to be laughed out of court.
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Yes and all the Murdoch ragsters are saying the exact same thing while the Herald and Age have discovered that the claims go back to 2002 and 2003 and were resolved years ago.
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So Ashby is Lily Tomlin and Slipper is CJ?
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Now you’ve upset me – I was very fond of CJ. !
Slipper was a necessary evil who turned out to be a good speaker : the house has been better behaved than it ever was under the sainted Harry.
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Right on Doug. But our media in general are appalling.
Kate McClymont in particular still crucifies Thomson even though a report says there are no criminal charges to be laid against him or anyone else.
It seems to me she took Kathy Jackson at her word and is now stuck with supporting a liar.
McClymont even claims that Jeff Jackson denied using prostitutes but anyway paid back the money he didn’t pay for prostitutes but Thomson denies it and is a liar.
Triple standards of stupidity anyone.
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This morning Michelle Grattan writes Gillard should “fall on her sword.” All this chaos is alarming and bloody stupid, however the government has managed to get through plenty of work in spite of it. Nobody mentions that. And I’m huanted by the possibility of an Abbott-led coalition government – now that’s seriously frightening. He’s going to alienate Indonesia and turn back boats, for a start.
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I’ll be a nameless, destitute street-person in NZ well before Abbott makes his victory speech.
Anyone country accepting of Palmer as a politician,and/or political donor (he lied about the CIA remember!), is alien to me.
I refuse to pay tax or live in a Nation led by supporters (voters for) of toxic faecal matter.
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Grattan was given a right royal pasting as she tries to elevate a non scandal to the level of starting two fucking wars and helping to murder over 1 million innocent people.
Steve Lewis who started the stupid Slipper lies now is forced to publish that it was Slippers’ driver 10 years ago who did something wrong.
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He can’;t turn back boats, he would be sued the second he tried it.
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Tony Abbott’s platform for the next election will be:
“Turn back the boats! Turn back the carbon tax! Turn back the climate! Election now!”
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You mean turn back everything.
To 1956.
Tony Abbott wants to master the silken ‘tongue* manoeuvres’ of his father and mentor, John, “still home at 35, with ma and pa”, Howard.
*(A tongue most familiar with placating the manhood of many western leaders, and other local despots.)
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“Alienate Indonesia & turn back boats”?
He couldn’t possibly show more cultural insensitivity toward Indonesia than the current government has shown.
And turninb back boats is a BAD thing………….???
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Turning back boats is a truly great policy, but only if it is retrospective enough to encompass the first fleet.
The proof of the damage to British in-breeding walks and talks and goes by the name of Tony Abbott.
Howard perfected the art of politically fellating the Indonesian regime.It will take generations to undo his carnal lust for power.He and his two war mongering mates should be doing hard time as we speak.
If your pub talk position were true, “Steve”, Corby would not be getting a shortened sentence,and the Bali Nine word be very old worm food by now.
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Yes you arsehole, we are not allowed to. It’s a crime.
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You pair could have done with parents who taught you manners.
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Yep it’s great growing up with parents,Steve.
You don’t know what you missed out on.
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Manners aren’t important in blogs; but some semblance of intelligent thought would be nice.
If you think Abbott is a realistic alternative PM, we have nothing to discuss.
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-03/indonesia-targets-bishop-over-asylum-policy/3986562
I’ll learn some manners when you tweak your judgement.
Care to readjust your view on the statement:
“He couldn’t possibly show more cultural insensitivity toward Indonesia than the current government has shown.
And turninb back boats is a BAD thing………….???”
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Hypo, you haven’t any judgement. Merely spouting the sort of guff that is shouted in socialist resitance meetings isn’t judgement. Not by a long shot.
I don’t engage with the gutter, so either clean up your manners, or be consigned to the ignore bin.
Life’s too short to engage those who are unable to conduct themselves with dignity.
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No worries,ignore me.
I’ll live.
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Hmmm, standards are certainly slipping on this site.
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A dog smells his own ‘doings’ first.
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Well Steve, you don’t bring much to the site.
It is a crime to turn innocent people back into the sea to die, what sort of cretinous arsehole are you.
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QUOTE (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tony-Abbott-will-never-be-prime-minister/274330505796)
Thanks to Billy Clyde Puckett for this GEM.
INCREDIBLE letter in today’s The Age:
“Media’s double standards are clear.
“WHEN John Howard was prime minister, he haemorrhaged seven ministers in his first term alone with scandal after scandal. He had to rip up his promised ministerial code of conduct because he couldn’t afford to lose any more. He also reneged on almost all his election pledges (remember his ‘non-core promises’?); he took us into one dubious war and one illegal one; he lied about asylum seekers throwing their children overboard to win an election; the list goes on. And yet the media didn’t call for an election and nor did the opposition. The media instead judged him on the health of the economy.
Julia Gillard’s government has had fewer ministerial scandals than any in living memory. Craig Thomson allegedly misused a union credit card before he was even in Parliament, and Peter Slipper isn’t even an ALP member. Neither has been charged with anything. But still there are almost daily calls for an election from the Opposition Leader and a certain 70 per cent of the press.
Australia survived the global financial crisis better than any other country, and the IMF recently named our economy the best in the world. And yet, unlike under Mr Howard, these statistics are hardly mentioned. All we seem to read about is the incompetence of the government, constant opinion polls and calls for an early election”.
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Excellent letter indeed – whoever wrote it clearly has a better memory than the goldfish of our media.
The political agenda has been on foot since late 2009, and Murdoch’s media in particular are stirring up whatever storms in teacups they can find. The other media repeat the crap in slovenly cut and paste and me-tooism, and pretend that there is momentum.
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Mate, find another windmill to tilt at.:)
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Mr Latitude,
I’d be keen to hear your take on the non-collusion between the big players,the coalition and the media.
(Pre- accompanied by a declaration of pecuniary interests of course)
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Happy to oblige. There are no pecuniary issues involved. I no longer write for the Australia media. And I have no formal political connections.
On the substance, even the government’s firmest supporters – and I concede I’m not one of them – would surely admit that things have not quite gone to plan. This is a pity. Governments should have a chance to govern. This one seems extra adept at shooting itself in the foot (or both feet). It assassinated a first time prime minister, it broke a firm election commitment (on the carbon tax), and it unnecessarily tied itself to the separate agendas of independents and the Greens. Then it went downhill. It generates a Blackadder/Mr Bean news cycle that the media is going to follow, and not just for the laughs. Conspiracy theories abound but the newsroom reality – and I spent many years in newsrooms – is to get a juicy story. Oddly, that never seems to please those who find they themselves are the juicy story, especially if this is because of their own culpable inattention. Journalists and editors will generally speak to anyone who’ll speak to them. Not sure how that constitutes collusion.
Doubtless the debate will go on. For my money, if the answer’s Kevin Rudd, it’s a very stupid question. But there you go…
Cheers
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Thanks for the reply.
Other than the sacking of Rudd (we will really never know the degree of the internal reasons why this was manifested) I still see no (supplied) justification of the obvious media campaign to destabilise a minority govt.
Gillard has been smashed on every decision.Obviously some pre-election commitments have had to fit the new make-up of the teetering parliament.
(I won’t rehash the insane rants of the lunatic fringe regarding their take on how a unsatisfactory result = a broken Westminster system.)
Only a fool would have believed Abbott would have stuck to any of ‘his’ plans if the independents had swallowed his spiel for power.
Abbott has been invisible to scrutiny.
The only policy of the coalition is nay.
You can quote all you like about Labor or green supporters but I am yet to meet ONE single working person,or small business owner, who has any idea what the coalition has, by way of policy.(let alone the funding implications)
If you cannot see/hear/smell/feel a collusion, consider yourself in a very big camp.
one which did not exist before the conservatives wilfully assassinated the fair go attitude we had until recently.
I’m disappointed but not surprised this social cancer is so wide spread.
Greed and gullibility are good bed fellows.
The current political mess is 85% political interference.
Choose how you allocate the blame,between the coalition,the magnates and the media.
They are all un-Australian.(read immoral/unethical)
Each day since the last election has been an exercise in wrecking.Nothing less.
NZ is looking good.
Other things to note:
The GST will be 15% within 5 years.
Don’t waste energy defending the opposition or attacking Gillard.The tyres on the band wagon are about to blow from overloading, and there will be blood and guts to spare.
It won’t all be Labor/Green.
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Hypocritophobe (love your moniker) … I think we’d agree about the lunatic fringes. But the rhetoric of daily politics has everything to do with scoring political points and nothing to do with policy (or for that matter, common sense) and is used without conscience by all sides of politics. Vacuity rules; of that I’m certain. Strange creatures emerge from stage right (and then go back off-stage to run their self-made empires…); from stage left, from whence they address us as fellow Earthians (and then go off to hug a tree); and centre stage, where they agree with everything their leader has just said except they don’t know what that was. It would make a divine comedy if we were not all so secular (and thank god we are). Enjoy the game. The ref will blow the full-time whistle soon enough.
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“it broke a firm election commitment (on the carbon tax)”
This is pure Murdoch press spin. On the eve of the 2010 election, Julia Gillard said there would be no carbon tax, but that instead she wanted to implement an ETS. The carbon pricing legislation passed last year was a fulfillment of that promise. It is an ETS, not a tax, and Tony Abbott knows the difference full well as Tony himself made clear in his now famous Sky interview of 2009. A few weeks ago Greg Combet was very clear about the distinction. Unfortunately, most of the press still carry on calling the carbon price a tax, and play directly into Tony Abbott’s game of framing Gillard as a liar, when the fact is that the only one lying about the carbon price is Tony Abbott.
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This particular windmill has plenty to commend it, 8 Degrees.
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Just watch out for the sails then 🙂
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Why does Kathy Jackson appear to be all grudge and payback, I wonder?
I think we WILL eventually find what it is (exactly) that drives her need for justice ‘her’ way.
She is either a new age visionary or a bitter and twisted control freak seeking retribution.
She says:
“I think we need to have a different regulatory body that’s not part of Fair Work Australia. That’s not a matter for me but my personal view is that how it’s currently regulated isn’t enough.”
(Read-‘I’m not happy with the results,change them,now.’)
Please direct me to where this was at the top of her list of ‘things to do’ before the spotlight came her way.
Given the minuscule (if any) comments she has made about HSU workers issues, (since the saga began) it’s hard not to smell a ‘personal Jackson agenda’.
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“Ms Jackson, meanwhile, is defending herself against claims she used union funds to stack Labor branches in Victoria.
And she says a transfer of $58,000 into the account of her former husband Jeffrey Peter Jackson was “totally above board”, and was to pay out entitlements owed.”
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Hypo, do you know the name of the author of this letter?
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Sorry DQ,only if this helps,(Thanks to Billy Clyde Puckett for this GEM.) or follow the link on the paste above.
The letters authors sentiments are very similar to those of Tim Dunlops drum article today, no ??
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Hadn’t read Tim’s ’til now, Hypo. New job/position is playing havoc with my blogging.
Something similar, but not as succint. Bob Ellis asked me if I wrote it; I did not, but I would have been proud to have done so.
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Yes, Ms Jackson doén’t like being questioned.
And I have not heard a single word from her about the workers she represents.
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Comment to 8 Degrees of Latitude says:
May 2, 2012 at 10:02 pm
Thanks for the basics.I already get that.
I still do not see an explanation as to the obvious political assanination by media.
Are you unconnected yet loyal to this entity?
The media is in a place it has never been before.Inside politics,not outside looking in.If you(and others) cannot see that you are as Murdoch is,deliberately blind(paraphrasing)
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EDIT
assanination = assassination
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And 8 degrees you said this:
“Conspiracy theories abound but the newsroom reality – and I spent many years in newsrooms – is to get a juicy story.”
So why has the press completely avoided ANY comment on Graham Morris’s ‘kick to death’ comments?
Can you seriously say that apart from total media avoidance, not even one high-profile woman in the coalition, or in journalism, is offended?
Where is the outcry?
Is the media so flaccid?
(Not the one I see every day,that’s for sure)
“I’ve always favoured well-mannered anarchy.”
You must have been the ‘very’ last anarchist in journalism.
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In a nutshell, the folk on West Wing are devoted to something sacred that US democracy represents, particularly Jeffersonian democracy. They are desperate to end crises that threaten human well being.
In the real world, we have people like Grahame Morris and his equivalents within Labor, like Bitar and politicians like Abbott, so much like Santorum of the USA in his dogmatism, who could end up being like the Tparty fringe in the US, which showed last year that it would rather drag down the system then have anyone benefit from it, unless it was them first.
The moral right’s ethical superiority talk a battering last year, when they demonstrated how deep (or shallow) their values really ran, when their own interests were at stake, in Obama’s USA. His only weapon was dignity and with that alone, his contemptible opponents confounded themselves before him and the people of the world.
Hypo’s point re “kick to death” and Gillard, very little of substance as to policy gets talked over when politics is played ad hominem and that’s how they probably like it kept- besides they obviously that gender based bullying is the thing that will work in getting the ALP out of government, not because they beleive half the guff they say about the PM. I can add here that the one clear cut assaul that can directed toward
Gillard Labor is social policy, particularly as to asylum seekers. But this is the one issue where the coalition cannot speak, given its own attitudes and actions and policies when in government.
After the first decade of this century, don’t tell me people won’t drag others, or civilisation itself if need be, down with them, in the real world; West Wing was never like this, any more than Jet Jackson the Flying Commando was an accurate description of Cold War politics.
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Paul,
Don’t forget Labor are endowed with their own version of Morris.
The slimy obsequious, narcissistic, sycophantic Graham Richardson.
(Is he not lower than a snakes arse-hole.)
Where does he sit on Gillard, as the leader?
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I think he’s on Qanda tonight, Hypo, along with attack puppy in training Kelly O’Dwyer.
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Thanks JW,but I find a finger down my throat or IPECAC syrup works better than QANDA.
plus,
My TV screen is not wide enough to accommodate the carport-sized facial orifice of the ‘canus yappy interruptus’.
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I hear you Hypo. I won’t be watching either.
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