It was quiet! It was dark! It was cool! And it was...... peaceful!
The Blowfly had never been into a confessional before.
But when you ride on the shoulders of Australia's leaders you have to 'expect the unexpected' and 'go with the flow'.
On second thoughts it was not really 'the unexpected' to have the Opposition Leader going into a confessional.
After all it is what a thinking insect would expect from someone who began his schooling at St Aloysius' College and then to St Ignatius College, Riverview, a stint at Sydney University and then Oxford before studying for the priesthood at St Patrick's Seminary in Manly.
Throughout this time he was utterly Catholic in his behaviour earning the nickname "The Mad Monk" and writing articles for, inter alia, The Catholic Weekly.
So for that reason, although the confessional was a 'virgin' experience for The Blowfly, the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition was very much at home.
This is how it went.
"Bless me Father, for I have ahhh sinned.It has been 6 months since my last....errrr.... confession. I know I have previously confessed to the way I knocked off Malcolm Turnbull but ahhhh I feel so damned guilty about it that I need to confess it again. And while I'm at it errr I need to confess my envy of Peter Costello and the way he has with words and I also need to ahhh.. confess the way I let him believe that Howard was serious about standing down errr before the 2007 election. I'm sorry to trouble you with these ahhh old woes Father, but it is necessary for my own sanity to lay them to rest. And that's ahhh.. the 'gospel truth' Father."
Even from his shoulder you feel a huge sigh of relief from this good little Catholic trouper.
" And, Father, I errrr need to confess that I knew about the 'black hole' in the ahhhh budget projections coming up to the election.Hockey and Robb made me hide it. It reflected more on them than me ahhhh because I just left all this sort of complicated stuff to them. Just like I left that ahhh damned National Broadband network to others and it came back to errr haunt me. How can I be expected to be across all these policy areas? Hell I'm struggling to read my bible study notes each night and work out strategies for ahhhh keeping Turnbull away from the leadership much less get across all our errr policy documents! That's why I don't think we should have too many new policies. I'm struggling to do all the reading for the existing ones!"
"Father I also want to confess ahhh being duplicitous in dealing with the Independents. I just wantederrr to get the hands of power away from those dirty union yobbos. I shouldn't have told Pyne to sign anything! Ahhh I know! I know!And Father, I thought it would be a really good idea to build a new hospital for Andrew Wilke. It was only going to cost ahhh $1 billion. Hockey told me 'in for a penny, in for a pound' after the 'black hole' trick. 'What's a billion here or there?' he said."
The Blowfly could feel Tony Abbott was really warming to the task at hand and before too much longer he might really , as Laurie Oakes puts it, 'shoot his mouth off'.
"And Father I also told a little ahhhh errrr fib when I spoke about a 'kinder, gentler polity'. I didn't really mean it.I had ahhh enjoyed a mushroom sauce on my rib-eye that day and it must've affected me." {Note: The Blowfly had also enjoyed the mushroom sauce on Tony's rib-eye that day when Tony was not looking . He confirms that there was something a little fishy about it. The Blowfly also found himself becoming a little unrealistic and slightly maudlin but put it down to the overwhelming smell of Bob Katter's hat}
"Father I also wish to ahhh confess false pride. Whenever I put my 'budgie smugglers' on I feel like errrr a real man. I first noticed this feeling at the Seminary.That's when a knew ahhh being a priest was not going to work."
"Oh dear me Father this seems like a long confession. I hope I'm burdening you. After all, that is how errrr it is supposed to work!"
"Father, ahhh I also need to confess that I have a particular lustful feeling for redheads.That's the real reason I didn't want to go with Julia Gillard to Afghanistan. The thought of being on a long flight with her was going to be too much of a torment. I didn't want to go down the Gareth Evans and Cheryl Kernot track."
"I also want to confess ahhh about climate change, Father. I actually do believe that errr something is going on Father, and I know that if I continue with my position I am going to leave the way open for errr Malcolm Turnbull to take the leadership again. The Goldman Sachs juggernaut just can't be stopped. What's good for them is ahhh good for the world! And Malcolm used to work with them. And 'big business' who are my backers are going to want a carbon price and a trading scheme.At the Tory conference in the UK last week I errr got an earful of it.They're looking forward at the opportunities for a green economy! But I can only see Turnbull grinning at me from his iPhone! And what is this damn Twitter thing anyway and I'll bet he's behind that @tonyabbutt who takes me off on Twitter?"
His rant is broken by the kind words of the priest. "This is confession my son, not a counselling session.Please stick to your sins!"
"Sorry Father! It's been a long year and I've had to face so many disappointments. I'll leave it at that and promise not to leave it as long before my next confession."
"Well my son," said the priest in a thoughtful drawl, "I want you to say the Rosary 10 times and then 20 Hail Mary's and I want you to grant the Government a 'pairing' arrangement----the one that Rob Oakeshott and you had agreed to-----to atone for your sins. I am just doing you a favor my son, because if ever there was something that you've done that is going to backfire on you it will be that. Do you understand my son?"
Abbott looked puzzled.
"And my son, I want you to complete 2 Ironman Triathlon events this year to get rid of some of that testosterone!"
He looked even more puzzled.His ears appeared to flap.
As he walked from the confessional and into the sunlight he thought to himself:
"No wonder I haven't been to ahhh confession for so long.It was ahhh better when I was younger and I just had to confess all my errr sexual exploits.I felt really bad about them-----but the things I errr confessed today didn't really feel ahhh all that bad."
The Blowfly recalled the words of Jonathan Swift:"There is nothing in the world constant, but inconstancy"
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