The heat’s killing me. I need a break. What about you?
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I’m thinking of a holiday in Singapore.
Can’t afford it? No worries, just book through Goodbyeworld Travel.
Actually if you just ring the CEO directly, he’ll take care of everything (you can get his number from Barnaby Joyce’s office).
When you’ve got the boss on the line, just say “Hockey owes me one” and ask for the “Mathias Cormann mate’s rate special”, you’ll hardly notice the impact on your credit card.
And, if at any point, anyone casts a suspicious eye at you and asks why the airfare costs haven’t come up on your bank statement, you could prove you were intellectually wide of the mark by saying something like, “I supported Peter Dutton’s push for prime minister.”
If that sounds too hard for anyone to believe, you could try, “hey, I got the Australian public to pay a $37000 travel bill I racked up in one day by hurtling around the country in Defence jets, why should I pay for my own holiday flights.”
If that sounds a bit churlish, you could pull the ace from the deck and sing a song about a travel agent boss that just got a $1 billion contract dropped in his lap.
Probably no need to mention that the travel agent boss has the same name as the Liberal Party treasurer.
If none of this is working for you, you could always just fire up a Cuban cigar, find a table to dance on, and say, “I’m a politician, I can do what I bloody well like.”
This approach seems to be working pretty well these days.
Look, we know that politicians have always been a bit "clubby" and the intoxication of power has habitually led them to believe that they can operate outside the rules that apply to the rest of us.
However, we do appear to be living in particularly lenient times when it comes to the indiscretions of our elected representatives.
It wouldn't have happened back in John Howard's day I can tell you. He sacked 11 ministers, and seven of them in the same year. Time to sharpen the axe.
Simon Bourke is an ACM journalist
