Just go ...

Ignore the petty vandalism for a moment, and focus on the message ...

Just go ...

Not Campbell Newman. He's already gone.

Tony Abbott ...

Just go ...

Do it with style and grace of the kind conspicuously lacking to date in your political career.

Well of course the doofus isn't going to pay the slightest bit of attention to electronic graffiti, but thus far his premiership has helped the Liberals to lose in Victoria, where he was persona non grata, and now in Queensland, where, whatever happens in the final counting, he has helped to steer the good ship LNP on to the rocks ... without once showing up in the state.

That caps a dire month back at the helm, and it's not going to get any better. The speech he delivers tomorrow will be swamped by speculation, innuendo and bizarre stories of the "Mal Brough is going to be a suicide bomber" leadership challenger kind ...

Oh that rough Brough, slouching like a beast in a Yeats' poem towards Lake Burley Griffin ...

The ironies are already running thick and fast, and as always the pond turns to the reptiles at the lizard Oz to gauge the temperature of the water.

It's getting near boiling:

That was written without irony, but the juxtaposition of bouffant one knob polisher stories was replete with irony:

Where are you now, counter-revolution, Shane Stone, and the voices backing Tony Abbott that were supposed to be heard around the land?

Here they are. Take it away bouffant one (and google if you want the links):

And other reptiles were already bracing for the storm on the bridge.

And the Fairfaxians were also there.

Yesterday they'd been out and about armed with a baseball bat and the rough Brough:

And today they led with the obvious:

Yes, the pond watched the inept ABC election coverage, and poor old Antony Green in eternal battle with his computer, his touch screen and the data. It was rich in comedy material ...

And yes, the headline is thin as gossamer, seizing on a 'Wayne Swan' quote to suggest that Prentice was throwing Abbott under a bus, when she had in fact attempted to be achingly cautious, while attempting to sound like she was within cooee of the real world, rather than living in an Abbottian la la land, as bodies collapsed with a thud around her.

But in the end she was cornered, and came up with the goods:

Asked on the ABC whether Mr Abbott was the right person to lead the Coalition to the next election, Ms Prentice replied: "Well, that's a discussion, isn't it? We need to look at where we're going." 
"Tony has said he has listened and learned. He is making a keynote speech on Monday at the press club [and] we can't continue as we are. We are not taking the people with us. We are getting bad feedback." 
Ms Prentice predicted the Coalition would suffer the same fate as Campbell Newman's first-term state government if "we don't change what we're doing". 
Ms Prentice agreed Monday's speech was "make or break" for Mr Abbott. 
Asked whether the Queensland result would trigger a leadership spill, Ms Prentice hesitated and replied: "Look, I think our discussion... I think the members will look at the results tonight and they will take those to Canberra." When pressed again about the likelihood of a showdown, she said MPs would "see what he [Mr Abbott] says on Monday". 
Former Labor treasurer Wayne Swan, a panelist on the ABC broadcast, seized on the comments and said Ms Prentice had thrown Mr Abbott "under a bus".

It was, on even a moment's reflection, an impossible conclusion. Abbott's entire premiership hinges on a 'make or break' speech on Monday?

In that case, he's gone, but yet to acknowledge it. A single speech as the redemption of a premiership?

That's government by crisis, and the government has - despite all the weasel words designed to whittle it down - been in crisis for months. Maybe if Abbott were Churchillian, a single speech could do the job, but a rhetorical Churchill he's not.

Does Abbott have within him the grace to depart, as opposed to saying grace at meals? (That peculiarity, which placed Abbott somewhere deep in the mid-west in a John Ford movie courtesy of Peter Fitzgerald here).

Probably not, but the count in Queensland is liking to go on for the next week, there might be appeals if a count is tight, and then there's going to be the outcome, which is going to be precarious no matter to whom the prize falls. The depth of inexperience in the Labor mob is only matched by the level of slaughter in the LNP mob.

Look at the Currish Snail on line this morning, alive with the smell of napalm and bad puns, as the state of toads goes wild with excitement at the daring of the voters:

In the end, it doesn't matter how the story goes, provided there's a story, and Abbott's future is the next story.

Yes, good old Dennis Atkins - remembered lovingly in Adelaide for falling asleep in a movie he was supposed to be reviewing - bells the cat from a deep north point of view:

Note, above all, that illustration at the top of the story:

Abbott as a quaint, out of touch monarchist, standing with his photos by Lake Burley Griffin, like a fatuous, smirking, hand-rubbing goose ...

That's the image these days, and it's pretty settled and fixed, just like the long list of complaints and disasters, which are now routinely regurgitated.

And now the shark jumper has nuked the Queensland fridge, it's going to be a long way back, and if it all hangs on a single speech, the fridge nuker is doomed ...

If the Feds had half a clue, they'd move along, and quickly, rather than stay stuck in the quagmire. They could still have a good half term carrying out their agenda of transferring wealth from the poor to the rich, and they might even be able to mount a respectable campaign for re-election if they managed to elect the right figurehead in place of monarchist, grace-saying Abbott.

Right now, they're in the grip of a Mafia moment, as noted by Andrew Dyson, and with one body already off the political stage, there's sure to be more (and more Dyson here).

There will be blood. The only question is how much ...