As the parliamentary season draws to a close, the political
landscape of Canberra is beginning to resemble more and more a Looney Tunes
cartoon. Every time Wily E. Tony sets one of his fearsome traps, the
nimble Julia zooms straight past, and the leader of the Opposition’s elaborate
contraption inevitably blows up in his own face.
For months, the Acme Bring Down The Government weapon of mass
destruction has laboriously been constructed bit by bit in the scrubby
wastelands behind Capitol Hill, ready to annihilate the Gillard government in
an awesome puff of smoke. Early preselections put to bed? Check. Carbon tax to
be repealed? Check. All systems for an early election ready to go.
The trigger? In Tony’s clever plan, all that was needed was one
teensy weeny defection from the motley crew of Roadrunner's cobbled-together
coalition and her whole creaky edifice would come crashing down.
Just one defection.
Would it be Andrew Wilkie and his pokie reforms? Or would it be one
of the NSW independents; a couple of Looney
Tunes characters in their own right, who would stumble across the floor and set
off the tripwire? Maybe it would be one of the whacko Greens, or the bloke in
WA whose name nobody can remember? Rubbing his hands together in gleeful anticipation,
Tony assured his eager troops that his latest plan could not possibly fail.
Just one defection.
BOOM! When the big bang finally happened, nobody saw it coming.
Least of all Tony. As the dust settles, the leader of the Opposition stands
dumbfounded with blackened face and singed eyebrows, blinking in confused
astonishment. Yet again, her red hair glinting in the sunlight, cunning Julia
has outclassed him, whizzing straight past and disappearing in a blur around
the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, ready to fight another day. Meep meep!
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