The Blowfly is an experienced time and dimension traveller---as many of you will know!
What you will not know, unless you are Stephen Hawking’s apprentice, is that on the day that Julia Gillard was able to negotiate her way into Government in our hung Parliament, Tony Abbott, in a parallel universe was able to become Prime Minister in a similarly hung Parliament.
To do this he had to sell his backside----as he put it
Now when you sell your backside you are not yourself for quite a while afterwards. It hurts in a delicate sort of way! And you feel the subtle pain for some time!
As Tony Abbott was to find out! Many of you would say----“It could not happen to a nicer bloke!”
But there were some politicians, especially Independents, who, as in this dimension, wear smiles similar to those on the Cheshire cat in ‘Alice in Wonderland’.
Andrew Wilkie got the billion dollar hospital for his electorate in Tasmania, for instance. And his poker machine reform!
Poker machine reform did alienate the Coalition from the club movement but since most of those who frequent clubs are ALP voters anyway it didn’t impinge on the Coalition too much.
It was a bit of a mixed bag for Tony Abbott in the policy area. His propensity to say one thing and do another did not cease when he assumed the mantle of Prime Minister.
He also had to wrestle with his ‘black hole’. Not the one he had sold to get into office but the $11 billion deficit found by Treasury just before election day.
He had to break a few promises in order to get his budget in order---but what the heck! And this made it harder when the Queensland floods occurred. The Coalition’s financial situation was quite finely balanced and they also had to use a ‘levy’ to fund the abnormal expenditure this natural disaster cost the nation
And then there was the asylum-seeker issue.
Initially Abbott said that the captains of the Australian vessels were to ring him for a decision when each boat was engaged. However after a few early morning calls he soon delegated this to his Minister, Scott Morrison. After the Minister received a few early morning calls from border control captains he then delegated it to the head of his Department.
Then the Abbott Government was confronted with the Christmas Island tragedy when the asylum-seeker boat crashed on the rocks and broke up.
Not long after that some well-meaning lawyers launched an appeal in the High Court against processing at Christmas Island and succeeded. It was a bitter blow to the Abbott Government because the legislation previously drawn up by the Howard Government was found wanting.
And Tony Abbott could afford to be a gentleman in the Parliament. He was, after all, the Prime Minister. He had got what he always wanted. He could afford to keep his commitment to a ‘gentler polity’.
Some of you wont believe in parallel universes or that Tony Abbott is capable of delivering on his commitment to a ‘gentler polity’.
But The Blowfly can look you in the eye and tell you that it is indeed the ‘gospel truth’.
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