Sophie Mirabella, three card tricks, and I am woman, hear me chunder ...

(Above: pick a card, any card. One's Mao, one's Margaret, and the other is Green).

Another day in federal politics, and another sign that Tony Abbott has out-greened the greens with Greens spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young's poignant plea for the government to support Abbott's maternity leave scheme in Labour must negotiate with Liberals and Greens.

Yep, on one side there's the evil Chairman Rudd, and on the other, the Liberals and the Greens.

Certain that this unholy alliance would cause consternation amongst conservative commentariat warriors, what with its great big new tax on business, I went foraging to feel the outrage.

Naturally I came across Sophie Mirabella, who is so dry I sometimes use her instead of desiccated coconut in my cake recipes.

She'd never be prepared to forsake her principles for the cheap expedient of buying votes. Not when the country is in massive debt, driven there by Chairman Rudd, and we're likely to be bankrupt and defaulting (well at least the Queensland government is) by five o'clock next Friday. She hates taxes on business, she's the opposition shadow for industry, and the stereotype labelling of 'big business' and 'the big end of town' is just vile socialist claptrap to her, and she hates punitive socialist agendas designed to turn women in hatcheries or breeding factories. As for feminism, she's already spoken strongly against stereotypical views about women in the workplace:

No doubt a case can be made for the need for quality childcare, for family friendly and flexible workplaces, for the menfolk to pitch in with the housework more – and these are all factors that affect women’s participation and advancement in the workplace.

But before we cry “gender foul” and raise the spectre of discrimination and the need for “quotas”, we must also allow for the possibility that a growing proportion of women- including university educated professional women - have made a choice not to pursue their careers to the highest levels. That they’ve worked out where their priorities (and the joys in life) actually lie.

We must allow for the fact – not often debated and discussed in polite circles - that many women, while immensely enjoying their careers, view parenting as their most satisfying and important role in life.

There’s a chance that Australian women have actually figured this out and are making choices based on what’s right for both them and their family unit.

Women are smart like that. (here).

Oh dear, it tears me apart, the insight and the humanity. Stay at home mom. Woman are smart like that.

Perhaps that's why Sophie's so agitated about the feminists in I am woman, no comment, for when she goes looking for them, they're nowhere to be found:

Where are the women warriors on Paid Maternity Leave? The most extensive, economically significant policy proposal to support working women in decades is put forward by a major political party… so where are the feminists and women’s groups?

Presumably they've stayed at home, doing the housework:

Well actually Sophie, your natural ally, the Greens, have their female spokesperson furiously scribbling in The Australian in support of your policy. Can't you hear the siren song of the Greens? Apparently not:

Why is there such a conspicuous silence from those who “whooped” and figuratively threw streamers when the Rudd Government finally announced its Paid Parental Leave plan (which turned out to be little more than a re-badging of the baby bonus with an administrative nightmare for small business thrown in)?

Well actually there's a little something that sticks in the craw, and that's the nation that someone scoring 150k a year will get their full whack for six months, while someone on 35k a year will get their full whack. A bloody pittance. Because after all if you're making matchsticks in a factory your spawn isn't as precious as Mosman spawn. As always, institutionalised inequity is the specialised provenance of the Liberals.

So should women accept a bribe for institutionalised inequity based on a great big new tax in these precarious times? Sure thing:

On that note, big businesses are understandably opposed to the proposal because the funding will come from a 1.7% levy on around the 1% of Australian companies with taxable incomes over $5 million a year.

It’s an unavoidable way of introducing a serious Paid Parental Leave Scheme. And it will quickly become part of the modern industrial relations landscape.

Oh it all sounds so harmless, this generous hierarchical green socialism. Why it's more firmly based than the costing for a holiday in Fiji:

Four weeks sunning on a beach in Fiji is a lifestyle choice – and it can essentially be supported with paid leave each year! Of course, holidays are vital for our health and well-being.

Well, guess what? So is bonding and recuperation time after childbirth.

You see! Having a baby should just be like a holiday in Fiji.

Why am I suddenly reminded of Malcolm Farr musing Is Abbott a Maoist or a Margaret?

The Opposition Leader has been skipping between polar opposites, sometimes in the same policy announcement. He has proposed a special tax on big business to fund a plan for six months’ paid parental leave, something the old style Labor lefties, and the modern Green lefties, would cheer for. But momemts later, Abbott declares himself a traditional conservative who also wants extra help for stay-at-home mums and single-income families.

And Farr's explanation for Abbott's curious policy positions isn't far off the mark:

Certainly Tony Abbott is not the traditional traditionalist he might have once presented to be. He is a genuine radical who re-draws the “conservative’’ boundarises when he wishes.

He seems to have a suspicion of big business and when dealing with the top end of town he is more likely to channel BA Santamaria than Bob Menzies. That might explain his swipe at the profits of larger companies for his parental leave plan.

If you're too young to remember B A Santamaria, he was, when not bashing the Communists, scribbling furiously in favour of the Catholic family. Have plenty of kids - one for the family, one for the country, one for Peter Costello, and a couple for the Pope.

Farr also made note of the new great helmsman's policy methodology:

And he announced this policy without giving shadow cabinet a chance to pass an opinion, just like Kevin Rudd, whom he says conducts a one-man band. It was “a leader’s call’’ he told MPs. The Great Helmsman and the Iron Maiden would nod approvingly ...

... So Tony Abbott is teaching Liberals to adopt new positions and priorities. As Mao said: “Ideological education is the key link to be grasped in uniting the whole Party for great political struggles.’’

Cue Sophie, who in her dim way grasps the great helmsman's new feminist vision, scribbling away in support of her fearless leader, and wondering why big business is agitated, and why the feminists have seemingly deserted their saviour in his hour of need.

So why aren’t the traditional women’s “champions” at least engaging in the debate?

It’s a bit baffling.

Because you hapless befuddled chook, only last week Barners was telling us that debt was killing us, and we'd all have to make sacrifices, or China would foreclose us by COB today!

Do you realise how bizarre it is to suddenly see the opposition suddenly sprout wings and fly about in the sky spouting feminism, in the hope that women will forgive Tony Abbott his Catholic ways and forget about their apparent hostility to him, even if all the polls and the commentariat assure us that such apparent hostility is only a myth or a delusion?

Naturally Sophie is ready to make it up to big business in due course in the by and by, which must be the first time that they've suddenly been given a homily about pie in the sky:

As Industry Shadow Minister I’m certainly working on policies that will help mitigate the impact of this new levy on big business. Tony Abbott has committed to looking at company tax rates as soon as is fiscally responsible when in Government. The Coalition has an exemplary track record in this regard – lowering the company tax rate from 36% to 30% and introducing a range of capital gains tax reforms.

Levy? Surely it's an investment in human capital? No? Well how about calling it what it is? Like, it's a tax, in much the same way as a levy on my income is called income tax, not an income levy.

Specious smarminess is no way to sell a policy. And this kind of rhetorical flourish is surely designed to stick in the craw:

Surely that’s a good thing for both men and women? Surely that’s the Utopia many of the women’s groups and feminists aspire to?

The first step is a fair dinkum, workplace-based paid maternity leave plan. The Coalition has stepped up to the mark. But where are the women warriors?

But it's not fair dinkum. It's an ad hoc bit of opportunistic half baked half assery, poorly devised, and even more poorly presented, just so the Liberals could attempt to undercut Chairman Rudd's scheme.

If women warriors support it, then all they're doing is showing how they can't find the pea under the thimble, and how they'll be ready victims for any joker working the three card trick (and for advice on both three-card monte and the shell game, you can take a look at the wiks here and here. Remember if you watch the hand, then misdirection will do you in, and you'll just be another mark in the game of life).

Sorry, shill games are so much more interesting than politics, but back to Sophie, and already in the comments section, there were bad signs brewing:

Don’t tell us Sophie, Tony’s bag of boiled lollies is bigger the Kevins. I thought poliical bribery was a No, NO.

And then there was this:

The reason that you don’t hear great waves of feministas shouting huzzah is because it’s a silly policy in the way it’s costed. Silly policies have a way of not coming to fruition.

To make some employers - by and large those already providing the most generous family leave to their employees - so that another firm can give their employees parental leave is simply absurd.

It’s also a silly policy because it treats mothers differently - where were you when Brendan Nelson pointed out that all babies were equal?

A high income mother is better able to prepare for time out of the workforce. A lower income mother is not.

And so on. Feminists cheering on Sophie and Tony were conspicuous mainly via their absence, though there was a generous amount of commentary bashing women for being bludgers, as male readers failed to pick up the essence of Sophie's nouvelle vague feminism.

Never mind. I guess Sophie and Tony always have their natural allies, the Greens, to go double dating with ...

Oh pull the other leg. Now if only Sophie knew the lyrics to the Reddy song, she might have had a better chance to get the header for her column right. I am woman, hear me chunder.

Naturally The Punch illustrated the piece by hot linking to Helen Reddy live in 1975 on YouTube, demonstrating how intellectual property rights mean nothing to the bower birds and scavenging rats in the Murdoch empire.

Suddenly I had the yen for something other than glutinous re-heated, re-hashed nauseating fibre-less ersatz inequitable Liberal baked bean feminism, and who better to correct the balance than the Beach Boys?

Beach Boys, you shriek. Oh no, not that, anything but that, perhaps another Helen Reddy tune instead. But this column is dedicated to that feminist Tony Abbott and his acolytes, and surely you know that the mad monk's favourite song is the Sloop John B?

LEIGH SALES: Alright, we'll have a bit of a sing-along. Tony Abbott, you're one for unexpected comments. You're not about to reveal a love of Britney Spears, are you?

TONY ABBOTT: No, I'm not. You know, Sloop John B by the Beach Boys is probably my all-time favourite, but don't ask me to sing it. Occasionally I try to sing it at karaoke and normally I empty the room.

LEIGH SALES: We might have to save that for another - another Lateline occasion we'll save that for. Tony Abbott, Lindsay Tanner, thank you very much. (here)

So here it is, studio style illustrated by a cover, rather than live. Don't blame me, blame that feminist Abbott. Hang on, why is the room suddenly empty?