A breef resent histry of Teh Cowalish Co-uh Librul Partay

After the shockingly outrageous and unfair events of 2007, when the natural party of leadership somehow inexplicably lost its eleven-year squirrel grip on the Australian psyche and its master narratives, it was deemed appropriate to elevate a Sacrifical Brendan to the leadership.

Sacrificial Brendan had a leadership style all his own.





Chafing in the wings, however, there was an Upstart Malcolm. (Sort of like in Macbeth, also November 11 1975, maintain the rage, etc.) And, being the sort of chap he was, Upstart Malcolm was in too much of a hurry to time his run properly.





Upstart Malcolm also had a leadership style all his own.





But 'Old' Nick Minchin wasn't having a bar of Upstart Malcolm, who was acting far too much like someone from the 21st century for 'Old' Nick's liking. And so, like a chess player, Nick manoeuvred his pieces with care. After giving it a great deal of thought, he decided to play the Sacrifical Joe. But he knew he needed to handle his pieces carefully, and give them the illusion that they were helping.





Sacrifical Joe, not unreasonably, expected to be rewarded for doing what he was told.





But then, in an admirable outburst of integrity, Sacrifical Joe decided at the last minute that he would try to make room for opposing views on the sofa benches. Unfortunately 'Old' Nick and his henchpersonsmen and minions weren't having a bar of it.





This threw the Coalition into the sort of disarray that produces a result nobody was expecting,





and to everyone's surprise including his own, Tony 'Slugger' Abbott found himself in charge.





And so Slugger was obliged to play the hand he had been dealt, otherwise known as the Hopelessly Divided Coalition, and sort himself out a new front bench.





Having hand-picked a team that would ensure rich pickings for columnists, cartoonists and comedians for the foreseeable, and having promised that this motley crew would give the Government 'the fight of its life', Slugger was then obliged to whip his team into shape sharpish.





His plan was to resurrect the long-dispersed and in any case largely mythical fighting force known as 'Howard's Battlers' (though he knew he would need to re-educate them as to the identity of the enemy) and then, having resurrected them, to get them to join forces with his new Front Bench and unleash the result on an unsuspecting public.





And meanwhile, from behind the sparkling Venetian blinds of her spotless kitchen with its empty fruit bowl, a mystery redhead watches closely as the story unfolds.