Strange Politics: Hog wild with Latham and Abbott

THE camera fades into a grimy bar room, where a petite hippie woman with feminist leanings locks grip with never-quite Prime Minister Mark Latham's ham fist.

He is a tangle of bulging veins, sweat puddles, and anxious grumblings about feminazis taking over the world.

A fidgety Tony Abbott is so conflicted he can barely bring himself to slug down his warming beer as he watches on.

"Latham's a mug, no doubt," his mind clashes.

"But cop a whiff of that environmental vigilante's pits!

"Patchouli's next on the hit list after mining project challenges."

Abbott's thorny limbs twist into a knot as his contradictory urges transmute into physical convulsions. Steam jets from his ears.

"Ditch that witch, Latho! No! Use your sex appeal, Autumn Breeze, or whatever you call yourself."

The scene fades to black as Latham's heavy arm buckles under the environmentally concerned feminist's downward force.

Beaten by a girl.


FROM Mark Latham getting the pink slip (read: voluntarily resigning) to Tony Abbott declaring war on environmental law, the week in politics has been hog wild.

After eight years of unremitting you-know-what-stirring in his Australian Financial Review column, the straw that finally broke Latho's back was social media.

Some journalist types linked the @RealMarkLatham Twitter handle, first thought to be a parody account, to the real Mark Latham's email - though this is strongly denied.

The account bagged out everyone from depressed people and a transgender military officer to working mothers and Australian of the Year Rosie Batty, whom it mockingly labelled a "great judge of male character" after her former husband murdered her son.

Grubby stuff, whoever is behind the page.

Latham has previously criticised Batty in a column for using the tragedy to go on the paid speaking circuit, but once again pointless aggression has crushed his message.

As the man journalists dubbed "Biff" moves on, let's not forget the time he called the Coalition "a conga line of suckholes" for following the US into Iraq.

The week's next piece of bubble-headedness came from the Prime Minister himself.

Livid over a court ruling the Adani coal mine licence in Queensland was illegally granted, Abbott wants to abolish part of the law so only people directly affected by a mining project can challenge it in court.

Problem is, Farmer Joe might not have the funds to lock horns with a billion-dollar company.

The government could easily avoid embarrassment by assessing mining applications properly the first time around.

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is bad for everyone, not least the environment.



STRANGE POLITICS with Chris Calcino
STRANGE POLITICS with Chris Calcino

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