The lot of a Prime Minister’s wife is not an easy one.
It is extremely hard to please all of your husband’s constituency. It doesn’t matter how you play the game someone is going to criticise you.
Dame Pattie Menzies was ‘too much of a lady’. Dame Zara Holt was ‘too homely and yet too posh’. Sonia McMahon was ‘too glamorous’. Tammy Fraser was ‘too mundane’. Hazel Hawke was ‘too tolerant of her husband’. Anita Keating was ‘too smart’-----that’s why the first thing she did when Paul vacated was to get her life back and ‘leave the bastard’. We all sympathised with her! If Turnbull’s republic had’ve got up she would’ve been a walk-up start to being our first President based on her ‘ballsy’ effort in telling Paul Keating exactly what she thought of him---and confirming what the rest of us suspected about him!
And Janette Howard! Well she was far ‘too precious’ about her husband’s lot in life. Can you imagine sitting outside your husband’s door like a Sentinel vetting visitor’s and being involved in conversations with Ministers who had been asked to report back about his prospects of winning the next election? Most wives could not give a ‘rats’ about their husband hanging on in politics----they would prefer them to vacate and get on with their lives! But Janette had got used to Kirribilli House and the trappings and -------her kids had left home and she had nothing better to do!
So you will understand why The Blowfly has recently become more interested in Therese Rein, the poor, long-suffering wife and partner of one Kevvie Rudd--------our country’s supposed 'leader'.
Having penetrated the PM’s house before Christmas ,The Blowfly felt compelled to do a return visit early in the new year to understand more of her contribution to the PM's thinking----whatever there is of his thinking!
She can usually read his thoughts---as most wives can---but when he is aware of this he begins thinking in Mandarin to throw her off the scent of his brilliance.
So let me set the scene for you.
I am on Therese’s shoulder as she climbs a ladder in the PM’s study in their Brisbane home. It is a modest study roughly 3.7m by 3.7m and with a normal ceiling of about 2.1m.
In her hands she has a large Kellogg’s cornflakes box. In her mouth she has a sticky tape dispenser. Although The Blowfly is used to dizzy heights she is not. You are careful not to try any antics that might distract her lest her much-recently-reduced-voluptuosness falls from the ladder.
She gets to the top, rests the sticky tape dispenser on the top rung of the ladder, extracts two good 6 inch pieces of tape and places the Cornflakes box in the top left hand corner of the room against the ceiling. Deftly she places one piece of sticky tape under the box and affixes it to the wall. With the other piece of tape she attaches the box to the side wall. Several more pieces of tape later she has the box ‘going nowhere’.
But the Kellogg’s cornflakes box is now positioned firmly where it will attract the PM’s attention when next he sits at his desk.
Now she reaches into her bra and extracts a sewing pin and sticks it part-way into the box.
The Blowfly is fascinated with this escapade. He is puzzled yet full of admiration for her. It was no mean feat to position the cornflakes as she has.
She alights from the ladder, straightens herself and smiles one of the largest smiles you have ever seen from a PM’s wife. Mostly they have precious little to smile about! And there is also a severe twinkle in her eyes. You can see why Kevvie loves her.
As she admires her work you tune into her thoughts and catch something along the following lines. “That will make that little Mandarin-speaking, egocentric bastard think! And when he shares it with Penny ‘2 Wong’s don’t make a Wight’ it will be just one almighty hoot. I wish I’d be able to see her face. God, I’m brilliant! No wonder he married me. Not only am I sexy and wealthy---I am also smarter than him.”
You glance up at the cornflakes box with the pin impaled in it and wonder what-the-hell she is thinking about. Your minute little brain is unable to comprehend this woman's intentions----you after all are a male blowfly.
She retires from the study and goes about her normal household duties. But there is a definite jauntiness about her. You even sense that she is enjoying the ironing-----now that is a first! Most thinking men know that they are in trouble when their wife starts enjoying the ironing.
The Blowfly positions himself near the kitchen bin, feasting for most of the afternoon.
But as soon as you hear Kevvie's Commonwealth car in the driveway you re-position yourself on Therese Rein’s shoulder to enjoy the show that is about to unfold before your eyes.
In he walks be-spectacled and bearing the weight of Australia’s problems on his weedy shoulders. He goes straight to the study to throw his brief-case down---just like he used to do when he came home from school----most men never change! As he does you hear this almighty shriek as he exclaims in his new social media lingo “WTF?”-----which is the jargon exclamation from his Twittering!
From the study he emerges positively bemused by the new ornament adorning the area above his desk.
“Therese, what the hell is that thing in the corner of my study above my desk?”
“Darling,” she says impishly, “I thought you would never notice!”
“Darling, you know how, in our marriage to date, I have made all the money and you have the brains?”
His heads nods slowly, very slowly------ but surely!
“Well from now on we are going to reverse our roles. You are going to make the money and I will be the clever one!”
He nods again with his eyes rolling gently back in his head.
“I’ve been trying to get my head around all this climate change stuff you’ve been rubbing into me since the election. And yesterday I came across a Letter to the Editor from a guy who used to run the Munmorah Power Station near Newcastle.”
“Yeeeessss!”, Kevvie stammers knowing that he is on a hiding to nothing with this line .
“Let’s imagine that your study represents the atmosphere of our lovely planet. The carbon dioxide volume is presently about .038%---up from .034% about 50 years ago. That cornflakes box represents the same proportional volume of carbon dioxide in your study,” she continues with spiff and spunk.
“Did you see the pin sticking out of the box?” she questions.
It had eluded his ever-present ocular vigilance and he returns to the study to check it out. He nods upon his return.
“Well that constitutes the volume of carbon dioxide that would be achieved if Australia achieves a 20% reduction in it’s emissions.We only produce 1% of the world's total emissions.” She turns her back to turn the kettle off.
“So the only people who are going to benefit from achieving the emissions reduction target in Australia are the people operating the carbon trading schemes, the people receiving subsidies for solar energy installations and innovation and the tradesmen installing insulation. So you go to it! You see if you and Turnbull can get that emissions trading scheme up and running because, between you both ---and Goldman Sachs--- we should be able to work out a way of making a fortune out of it”. She smiles at him with an all-knowing smile that only a wife can give.
He looks at her in stunned silence.
Your antennae go up. His thoughtful response emerges. He thinks to himself.
“Bitch! Now I’ve got two to put up with! I don’t know who will be worse----Therese or Penny?”
Your research into Therese’s capacities as the PM’s wife has been richly rewarded. If Turnbull’s republic ever got up Therese would surely leapfrog over Anita Keating for President.
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