August 25, 2011
WHERE'S Hans Christian Andersen when you need him?
If he were to compose a modern Australian version of The Emperor's New Clothes, he'd have to leave the entire Parliament naked.
It's an alarming prospect, of course, but the level of of pomposity, hypocrisy and vainglorious pretension on display yesterday fairly cried out for the clear-eyed innocence of a child to point out that ''they're not wearing any clothes''.
A friend in need: Embattled MP Craig Thomson receives a supportive hug from fellow Labor MP Richard Marles during a procedural vote yesterday. Photo: Andrew Meares
As Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, having asked but a single question, rose to demand the suspension of standing orders so that he could stretch Prime Minister Julia Gillard on the rack over her continued support for Craig Thomson (the bearer of the credit card that mysteriously found its way into a succession of bawdy houses) he cloaked the moment in see-through sanctimony.
''It is with considerable reluctance that I move for the suspension of standing orders,'' he oozed.
Piffle. Mr Abbott was about as reluctant to create the opportunity to torment Ms Gillard as an evil child might be to pin a fly to a corkboard.
It took no imagination at all to comprehend that Mr Abbott's cant was so exposed he wasn't even wearing his budgie smugglers.
Ms Gillard, having spent the past week swearing she had boundless confidence in the said bearer of the credit card - a form of progressive disrobing, you might conclude - sensibly chose to disappear altogether from the House of Representatives chamber at this point.
As Mr Abbott and his enthusiastic sidekick Christopher Pyne frothed their way through their tag-team condemnation of Ms Gillard for failing to force Mr Thomson to show his wares, it was left to the government's Anthony Albanese to roll up his sleeves, preparing to defend his Prime Minister's honour.
Mr Albanese, it turned out, hadn't stopped at rolling up his sleeves. By the time he had finished bucketing Mr Abbott for ''hypocrisy writ large'', Mr Albanese was butt naked, too.
He and his colleagues have been seeking plaudits over recent days for feigning to politely tiptoe around the matter of a Liberal senator, Mary Jo Fisher, who is facing charges of having shoplifted goods valued at $92. No longer.
The only parliamentarian facing charges, Mr Albanese thundered, was a Liberal, and it was for shoplifting, and the charges had been kept secret for two months after they were laid.
This, apparently, made Mr Abbott a dreadful fraud for pursuing Mr Thomson, though the parallel between the alleged shoplifting of $92 in goods and Mr Thomson's spot of bother - a union credit card that had inexplicably racked up thousands of dollars for the services of sporting girls and a gift of $90,000 or more from the generous NSW Labor Party - wasn't necessarily obvious.
When the tawdry matter had been talked to an unsatisfactory conclusion and the government had predictably used its numbers to refuse Mr Abbott's demand for a suspension of standing orders,
Ms Gillard miraculously reappeared.
Question time, she announced, was over. The opposition, having asked only one question before its stunt, didn't deserve any further questions.
That left Ms Gillard with not a thread to wear, for it was equally obvious she didn't want to face another question about her confidence in the bearer of the amazing credit card.
Sadly, Hans Christian Andersen put in no appearance, there was no child to point out the bare-bottomed cheek of all concerned and, sadder still, this was no fairy tale.
