Tony Abbott and the cautious Caucus

Buoyed by the recent success in the House of Reps added to their continuous run of good polls, the Shorten Caucus meet to discuss tactics.

SHORTEN: Things are good at the moment, but remember, one swallow does not a summer make.

TONY BURKE: Well said, Bill.

SHORTEN: Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Only one poll matters.

ALBANESE: May.

SHORTEN: May you what, Albo?

ALBANESE: No. I mean the May poll.

SHORTEN: This is not the time to rabbit on about dancing. There are serious matters at hand.

ALBANESE: No, I mean they’ll wait till May to hold the election. ScoMo is a moral to hang on as long as he can to all the pomp and ceremony of being PM.

SHORTEN: I’m sure you’re right, but there is never a good time to rest on your laurels in politics. Hence I ask, where do you see our main area of concern?

CHRIS BOWEN: The franking issue with our retirees.

PENNY WONG: The attacks we will have to counter on our border policy.

TANYA PLIBERSEK: The Libs will go on and on about being better economic managers.

GED KEARNEY: No doubt they’ll claim Bill is controlled by union heavyweights.

JASON CLARE: We have to be humble. If we appear arrogant it will blow up in our face.

SHORTEN:All good points. And yes, arrogance and hubris could be an issue with the Tories dropping like flies. Which ones have said they’re jumping ship? Mark?

MARK DREYFUS: Michael Keenan. Nigel Scullion and Kelly O’Dwyer.

SHORTEN: Thank you, Mark. May I say, I am pleased Abbott hasn’t joined that club.

KATE ELLIS: Why, Bill? That man’s a disaster. I say good riddance.

SHORTEN: My point exactly, Kate. The man is a disaster ... for the Libs. Not for us. He’s the gift that keeps giving. Think about it. Their climate change policy is stuck in the flat earth era because of dear Tony.

WONG: Point taken.

SHORTEN: We were smashed because of the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd kerfuffle. Thanks to Tony the dickheads on the other side have given us the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison trilogy. I tell you, he’s manna from heaven.

ALBANESE: What’s your point? We all know he’s fucking mad.

SHORTEN: My point is, how can we sandbag Abbott from defeat at the election? We need him.

BURKE: That’s nuts. The entire country will be better off when he’s out of parliament.

SHORTEN: We won’t be. If Abbott remains after the election, the Libs are cactus. They could even split. Bishop and Abbott can’t even look at each other let alone work together.

I’m worried he could lose his seat If that happens we may only be looking at being a one-term government. With Abbott in their midst, we’ll be in power longer than Menzies.

ELLIS: I see your point.  We are obsessed with sport and Zali Steggall was one hell of a sportswoman. That’ll get her heaps of votes. It will be hard to counteract her natural fit as to how we see ourselves as a nation.

CLARE: Can we preference him?

SHORTEN: Only above One Nation. We have to fight fire with fire. Highlight his sporting prowess.

ALBANESE: He could box and coach.

BURKE: Can’t use it. Remember he broke Joe Hockey’s jaw when he was his coach. Not a good look.

WONG: Speaking about not a good look: Tony the swimming hero in his red togs.

BOWEN: Yeah. Sales of speedos plummeted after that infamous shot of him coming out of the water. We’ve somehow got to erase that memory from the collective psyche.

SHORTEN: We can’t go the sports angle. We can promote him, from arm's length of course, as an ideas man. His book, Battlelines, for instance. Never read it myself. There must be one or two decent ideas in there we can emphasise.

PLIBERSEK: Waste of time. A complete dud. Even relaunching it in a colouring-in edition did nothing for its sales.

MARK BUTLER: I’ve got it. He loves riding his bicycle, right?

SHORTEN: Yes.

BUTLER: We can use that to rebrand him as a climate change champion. More bikes on the road. Fewer cars. Less CO₂ emissions.

Vote 1 Tony Abbott, the planet's friend

Ditch the car, embrace the bike.

Tell nasty emissions to take a hike

Healthy you, healthy planet.

KATE ELLIS: Fabulous! And we can get James Ashby to print the pamphlets.

DREYFUS: If we can find him.

 

Rocky Dabscheck is a musician/songwriter and front person for Rocky and The Two Bob Millionaires. He is also the author of 'Stoney Broke and the Hi-Spenders'.

You can purchase Rocky's book, 'Stoney Broke and the High Spenders' from the IA store here. The CD '42/68' by Rocky and the Two Bob Millionaires is also available from the IA store here. 

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