Is that a fire?

The AFP can certainly move when they want to, says Ross Jones — but in the case of Mal Brough and Ashbygate, it seems they just don’t want to.

(Disclaimer: the following is opinion based on information from unnamed sources who drink too much.)

BOY, THE AFP CAN MOVE when it has to. And it has to when it wants to suck up to what it believes, what it fervently hopes, will be its new political masters. They’re not alone in this, of course; Officeworks, ACT, is shifting shredders by the truckload, but right now there’s a lot to lose with a wrong move.

There is clear and irrefutable evidence Brough obtained a stolen diary extract. But so what? Labor are screwed. Onwards and upwards with our new LNP masters into the sunny uplands of totalitarian rule (IPA suggestion #76).

A much higher priority is to make sure Slipper gets buried, big time. Protect Brough’s back. And there’s a whole crowd behind that flaccid posterior ‒ Pyne, Bishop, Abetz et al ‒ so it’s not easy. Takes brains. Commitment. Dedication.

And three simple steps.

Step 1, the sergeant Schultz shuffle. Graham Perrett* laid the whole Ashbygate thing out for them on a platter. The response? We know nothing. We don’t even know the difference between a costs hearing and an application for leave to appeal. We don’t even know what an application for leave to appeal is. So what can we do? Nothing.



Step 2, create a diversion. Nothing better than a small fire over in a far corner. Dig out some cold embers from, oh, say 2010? and puff on them for all you’re worth. If the thing won’t catch, pour a couple of litres of unleaded on it, flick the Bic and stand back.

Old Cabcharge dockets are just the thing, they burn like buggery. Hang the expense. Send two AFP agents to Tasmania with a subpoena. Call in a geospatial ‘expert’**. Tie up the courts. Get a good quality mole in the Department of Finance and Deregulation.

Step 3, make sure the fire alarm works. No point in having a diversion if the alarm doesn’t go off. This bit’s easy. Don’t even need to call Rupert’s Alarm Monitoring, because its able technicians have been testing the claxtons on other emergencies, such as boy-loving window urinators and naked seafood and we know they work a treat.

And there we are. By the time the diversion has burnt itself out, the sightseers will have drifted away, bored with the anticlimax. Among them, the gonad-free Jason Clare, shuffling off to a comfy retirement. Unlike Australian wage earners who, to keep eating once the LNP give them The Treatment, will be forced to steal all the copper they can carry and sell it to North Korea.

All this over $900 and hang the Minchin protocol. The aim is to hang Slipper.

* As at 15 April 2013, no response to Mr Perret’s letter of 19 March 2013.

** We spoke with a geospatial expert who advised the trick is to map the cab’s GPS signals from the various responder stations. It’s not cheap.

(Find out about the Ashbygate Trust and help bring James Ashby and his co-conspirators to justice.)