The sheer joy of being utterly shameless ...

It's a game anyone can play, and the past few days have provided all sorts of fun.

Jolly Joe  Hockey and his "it's a budget emergency" buddies made all sorts of nonsensical claims in the run up to the election, and the media encouraged them in a shameless way.

So now endless hours can be spent trawling through the record noting the Chicken Little hysteria Joe "have I got a used car economy for you" and his mates generated way back when:

QUESTION: Mr Hockey, if the Government does seek to increase the debt ceiling, would you support them in that? 
JOE HOCKEY: We will always look at the proposal, we have always been reasonable about it but we want a fair dinkum approach to what the debt is going to be and given the history of the massive increases in debt against their own claims of what the debt would be; so we've gone 75, 200, 250, now $300 billion and we're fully expecting that they're going to come back to the Parliament and seek to have the debt cap lifted well above $300 billion, maybe to $400 billion, maybe even more. But we want them to be honest. I think Australians deserve an honest budget. (here)

And there's lots more:

"It looks like they are building in extra capacity to have money to fund further approvals without having to come anywhere near parliament," Mr Hockey said. 
"The government is being deceitful. We will consider whether we treat this separately to appropriations. "They have never seen a credit card they never wanted to use. We have real concerns over what they intend to use this for." (here, and why not try here for a Hockey Robb explanation of why we shouldn't raise our debt limit)

Now the pond wasn't much fussed at the time about Australia's debt limit, and isn't much now. Robert Reich put it well in his pithy tweet "Those who analogize the federal budget to a family's budget must know nothing about either."

All that simple minded yadda yadda was so much hot air, no, all that's to worry about is the stench of the hypocrisy.

Another perennial favourite, given its most recent outing here, is this one:

While a shadow minister, Tony Abbott, was never afraid of speaking bluntly in a manner that was at odds with Coalition policy. 
So as I am a humble backbencher I am sure he won’t complain if I tell a few home truths about the farce that the Coalition’s policy, of lack of policy, on climate change has descended into. 
First, let’s get this straight. You cannot cut emissions without a cost. To replace dirty coal fired power stations with cleaner gas fired ones, or renewables like wind let alone nuclear power or even coal fired power with carbon capture and storage is all going to cost money. 
To get farmers to change the way they manage their land, or plant trees and vegetation all costs money. Somebody has to pay. 
So any suggestion that you can dramatically cut emissions without any cost is, to use a favourite term of Mr Abbott, “bullshit.” Moreover he knows it.

Google it and you'll find Malcolm Turnbull's 2009 rant turning up in all sorts of locations.

Never mind, it was clear to anyone that the coalition's road to power was full of hypocritical lies and deceitful nonsense, aided and abetted by the Murdochian media, with Tony Abbott adept at mongrel gutter fighting - a surprise only to those who think the Catholic way is a Christian way, when really you haven't lived until you've seen close up the dirty in-fighting and eye gouging and king hits and coathangers that go on inside the Church ... Oh it might be polite and even in Latin but there's always blood on the floor that needs mopping up ...

The interesting question is how the media might call the recalcitrants to account, and fling the words back in assorted faces, which brings us to the sad case of Annabel Crabb.

The ABC has been looking for a replacement for Leigh Sales and Crabb is currently being given a go.

Apparently Crabb has been copping a bit of a pounding for the way she presents, and so a few nights ago on 7.30, she donned basic black and tugged her hair back so her anarchist tendencies looked a little under control.

Now the pond doesn't mind any of this - lacking a dress sense, the pond has always favoured basic black.

And it was certainly better than the outfit she donned to joust with jolly Joe Hockey last night:

What's this you say? The pond has turned into a really silly version of Mamamia, assuming that was humanly possible? What next, talk of Gwyneth Paltrow on the cover of Vanity Fair?

Actually it's more like a homage to Mike Carlton's joke about Bill Shorten's ascendancy, to which he gave a gushing, breathless Gillardian edge here:

Graciously accepting his election as Labor leader last Sunday, former trade union boss Bill Shorten looked radiant in a tailored charcoal suit, crisp white shirt and a carefully knotted necktie of crushed mulberry. 
A bouffant new hairstyle and mirror-polished black Italian loafers complemented his ensemble when he joined his attractive blonde wife, Chloe Bryce, to pose for the waiting media at Parliament House.

And so on.

More problematic than the dress sense Crabb shares with the pond was the way Crabb didn't lay a glove on Joe Hockey, as you can see here, despite his rabbiting on in a nonsensical way about how the debt crisis in America was relevant to the Australian situation.

Oh she tried, but in the interview she came across as a bossy school ma'am, who deep down wanted her student to know that she was still likeable, even loveable. Firm where necessary, but fair and even with a sense of fun.

Towards the end, Crabb tried to crank things up, in an earnest way - you could see her ferreting with her notes, shuffling her papers, probing and reprimanding, and all that was needed to complete the caricature was for her to peer at her hapless, quailing student with a gimlet eye.

Sadly the insouciant, cheerful Hockey played truant, with what in the old days prison guards used to call dumb insolence.

He knew he could peddle any kind of horseshit and get away with it, and so he did.

Crabb didn't have the gutter mongrel instinct, which is perhaps just as well for the ABC, what with funding in the balance.

Who knows why. Perhaps it was her fellow travelling with politicians in the gormless Kitchen Cabinet, where she was all palsy walsy, in a bid to make them seem human, when really who cares if they're human - they like to rort like everyone els.

What we really need to know about is their policies, and see them called out, but Joe Hockey was allowed to play a dead bat - oh the metaphors are flowing today - whenever Crabb tried to discuss actual policies and naked hypocrisies.

And there was no mention of Clive Palmer, the elephant in the room. When the coalition really puts the pedal to the metal, they don't want to give populist Clive an inch of room, and now they have a very nice warchest and a gigantic credit card to spend on their own pet projects ... including more and more roads to ensure Australia stays ahead in the nineteenth century race give Cobb and Co's cars the very best tarmac on which to deliver snail mail on the copper tubes ...

Or some such thing, if you just love back to the future thinking.

At least Crabb can point to the Labor party, which has also failed to lay a glove on jolly "gigantic credit card, never mind the debt" Joe.

But then you also need a baleful media howling at the moon in indignation, and of course the Murdochians don't have time for that.

The reptiles at the lizard Oz, for example, are still living way back when, brooding endlessly about the Labor party.

Today, for example, the beyond the valley of the completely boring pompous, ponderous Paul Kelly is still on about why Labor lost, while Peter van Onselen spent his time explaining how cries of hypocrisy about jolly Joe wouldn't have any impact whatsoever on the thinking of the reptiles, with Labor sure to lose any public relations battle.

But there were a few signs of change, a little murmuring from behind the arras, not least from Janet "Dame Slap" Albrechtsen, with Entitlement enlightenment (inside the paywall, because you have to pay and pay)

Now never mind that her proposal is disingenuous and will never be implemented. At least the Sturt Krygsman illustration accompanying the piece verges on the heretical, though the pond finds the likeness quite charming:

Here's the nub of it:

Given that suspect claims continue to chip away daily at our trust, the new PM has an opportunity to be the architect of a new dawn in transparency. 
It won't require teams of public servants poring over expenses claims to check their veracity. All you need is a website where MPs disclose in real time their expense claims. Call it the online pub test.

Uh huh. Speaking of pigs:

Not to worry, Dame Slap gets herself quite lathered with excitement as she explains:

Rebuilding trust with voters could become one of Abbott's early signature policies

Yes, the dear sweet ingenue, the charming innocent, actually thinks Tony Abbott is the man to rebuild trust in politicians, aided and abetted by jolly Joe - have I got a used economy for you - Hockey, secretive furtive Scott Morrison - let's do an Orwellian on the language in a once a week debrief - junketing George Brandis, and the rest of the pack, too shifty already in their ways in such a short time, in a government which has already made behind closed doors secrecy one of its hallmarks ... 

Dame Slap gets the disease right:

Abbott should not wait for this to blow over. It won't. These revelations are coming from the media - and rightly so. Keeping our politicians accountable, in this case by exposing the misuse of MP entitlements, is its role in a Western democracy. 
Neither should Abbott wait for voters to get bored with these stories. That won't happen either. It's not the totality of money that matters - in some individual cases it's less than a few hundred dollars. What matters is that each dodgy claim slowly but surely undermines our trust in the system. And as PM, the stench will eventually come from Abbott's office if he fails to act. 

It's her solution which is risible, a solution which suggests that in her more deluded moments, she shares something of the school ma'am air of Annabel Crabb:

Were Abbott to act decisively and comprehensively, who knows, this transparency thing might just catch on. Abbott could put in place a system so effective the call would soon be made for similar measures in other areas where taxpayer dollars are spent. Why not ask public servants spending our money across the full spectrum of bureaucracies to detail their expenses on a website. Indeed, no one is too pure for these reforms. Not even sanctimonious journalists at the ABC revelling in the expenses scandal. Why not expect our taxpayer-funded broadcaster to put up details on its website of how journalists and other staff spend our money on travel etc? The ABC has a gargantuan website; add a page to record expenses claims. 

Uh huh. She just had to get in a cheap shot at the ABC, couldn't resist it, could she, even as, by her example, she shows exactly why Abbott would be mad to encourage this sort of vigilantism around the public sector.

Suddenly a simple desire, and simple structure to keep politicians honest turns into a mad Don Quixote tilt at windmills. If the ABC is in the frontline, can unions be far behind?

Sure enough, Dame Slap's grand vision builds to a suitably dramatic climax, of the kind you find in the Bolter's favourite opera:

Abbott's transparency reforms could even catch on outside the public sector. After the recent troubles within the Health Services Union, unions might want to prove their commitment to accountability too. Why not allow members to access information about how union leaders and staff spend members' money? The possibilities for greater transparency and accountability are endless. And Abbott would be lauded for starting this revolution.

Yes they're endless, but sssh, don't mention the way the private sector rorts its shareholders.

It would be wonderful to have all the expenses of the Murdochians laid bare on a daily basis. Oh sure, your average journo whines about being forced to catch a bus to do a story, but let's see about those board room expenses ...

As if. Pillory the ABC and unions in the usual way, but don't mention the city, the bankers and the lawyers and the rest of them with their snouts deep in assorted troughs... there's transparency and accountability, and then there's the need to keep doing business in the usual way ...

And there's how you ensure that Abbott feels no need for reform of politicians' entitlements ... by turning the whole thing into a bizarre, epic proposal for transparent reform that sweeps through the ABC and unions, but leaves the private sector as snug as a bug in a corrupt rug ...

No wonder jolly Joe Hockey looks so pleased with himself. As good old Barners explained on Q and A:

BARNABY JOYCE: What I love about Government is you try to talk as little as possible, while in Opposition you try to talk as much as possible. 
 TONY JONES: Actually, it’s interesting how your Government talks very little now. There actually - there’s a philosophy behind it? 
 BARNABY JOYCE: Well, of course, because you're Government. You don't need to influence yourself. You know, that is your job. 
 TONY JONES: What if people want to ask you serious questions and you’re... 
 BARNABY JOYCE: I beg your pardon is what you're supposed to say. (here)

Oh the cheek, the arrogance, the hubris, the shamelessness. It truly is a marvel to behold, while the media moths flutter in the light ...

(Below: meanwhile, action man has been a boon for cartoonists, with David Pope fixing up a Bill Leak cartoon and Rowe at a wedding. More Pope here, where he does his own version of Abbott as a dyke boy, and more Rowe here).