Is there any way out of here said the joker to the thief?

(Above: someone had to do it, and Kerrie Leishman managed the job for Fairfax here - forced video at end of link).


Is it only the pond that thinks Tony Abbott has reduced parliament to a new level of childishness and immaturity?

The lizard Oz commentariat spend all their time scribbling about the lack of maturity in the government and the need for maturity. Like this:

(Screen cap: the pond's too immature to link to a demand for money with gold bar stamp).

But you never read in the Oz a line about the immaturity of grown adults racing for the doors, banging on the doors to flee the chamber, or prancing about in prissy-footed style so that they could land in the advisors' box and avoid the count.

It's incredibly childish, worthy of Gilbert and Sullivan, the New Guinea parliament, or the Three Stooges.

Yet it's dressed up as a principled stand or a matter of principle, when it's nothing more than banana republic stuff. (Abbott sprints for door to avoid Thomson's tainted vote).

The notion that Christopher Pyne is principled - when he can't even remember who he sends emails to - is risible beyond laughable.

At the same time Michelle Grattan seems vaguely perplexed in The mystery that is Abbott's unpopularity as to why Abbott might be unpopular:

In the Nielsen poll, Mr Abbott's personal popularity peaked more than two years ago and the longer-term trend has been down.

Well Michelle there's a simple reason. Relentless negativity and Stooge stunts, pokes in eyes, pans hitting skulls, and custard pies in face ...

Meanwhile, you have geese like Shaun Carney off running down the government, and squawking about Paul Howes, whom he introduces as a kind of ratbag in Is there any price PM won't pay to hang on? Apparently not (forced video at end of link):

Howes, a 30-year-old wunderkind of the union movement, did his political apprenticeship as a teenage Trotskyist.

Yes, we know all about that, including an enormous capacity to disremember what he got up to, as we were reminded by Howes' historical revision on life as a 'young teenage Trot'

The rabid defender of Aussie jobs confirmed the photo this morning, but told Crikey he had “no memory of that …when you’re a young teenage Trot you do end up going to a lot of protests”.

Truly, if you ever swallowed the Trot kool-aid as a teenager, you get a taste for it for life, though the brand and the flavour might vary.

Yet Carney in the same breath gives him full measure:

On Sunday, Howes was still in a sulk, describing the government as ''stupid''.

So we should pay attention to a sulker, a man capable of enhanced discourse on the level of "stoopid is as stoopid talks"? If you're Carney you do:

This is alarming stuff for Gillard. The AWU grouping is the bedrock of her support base within the caucus.

This is alarming stuff? Get rid of the misplaced vowel, and we're back with the Carnies ...

Shouldn't the AWU be alarmed at having a disremembering wildly ambitious wunderkind teenage Trot, still childishly rabid and sulking after all these years, at the head of the union?

There seems to be an epic bout of foot-stamping and childish behaviour running through politics at the moment.

Here's what Abbott could have done - he could have paired Thomson and sent him off to therapy. Perhaps there might have been some fruitful discussion about ethical behaviour and the addictive power of telling porkies and fibs. But of course he refused to offer an independent a pair.

Now the independent has voted independently, as he can.

Crossbenchers traditionally vote against attempts to shut down debate.

Mr Thomson later asserted his status as an independent, saying he was "no longer bound" by the Labor Party and would consider all legislation on its merits.
"I've always said that when I became an independent I would look at all issues on their merits, but support the government on supply and confidence motions," Mr Thomson said.
"I am looking out for what's best for the people of the (NSW) Central Coast." (here, paywall limited)

Couldn't the Liberals see it coming? Why were they reduced to an inept running rabble?

Abbott could have acknowledged that as a newly independent member Thomson still has the right to cast a vote however he pleases (until the grinding wheels turn to bear down on him), and meanwhile the Opposition and the Government could get on with actual parliamentary business, including the consideration of affairs of state, and policies and significant matters ...

Instead we get clowning around, with Abbott helping reduce the parliament to a three-ringed circus in his obsessive, relentless, negative quest for power.

Abbott is well on the way to becoming the most loathed politician since Malcolm Fraser took the reins, more than a match for Gillard. There's every chance he'll also match Fraser in producing one of the most disreputable and disliked careers as a PM since the days of Stanley Melbourne Bruce.

The pond makes a habit of disliking all politicians of all stripes on principle, but this kind of clowning around is likely to see the rest of the voting public keep Abbott right down there in the cellars in terms of popularity in the polling.

Will everyone rush for the door the next time that Mary Jo Fisher votes in the Senate, and never mind that Abbott found it in his heart to support her and a plea bargain deal?

In support of his application for costs, Mr Abbott said Senator Fisher's was no ordinary shoplifting case as she faced being stripped of her Senate seat if convicted on either charge.

“It could have ended all that she had worked for in her life,” he said. (here, paywall limited)

That's as opposed to the untold suffering she inflicted on the world, and the pleading and begging for her to stop when she did the hokey pokey? (YouTube along here).

So Abbott can find it in his heart to discover sympathy for Fisher, yet flees the chamber in horror at the thought of Thomson casting a vote?

That's taking clowning around and nattering negativity to new lows ...

Wilkie called it an unedifying spectacle, but then he's always been inclined to be generous.

But you ask, what role then for Christopher Pyne in the pond's attempt to revive the Columbia Pictures franchise, given that the main roles are already taken?

Surely he can play the custard pie, and what a good, ripe, rich job he'd make of the role ...

(Below: another casting suggestion for the new act, found here).