From an article titled “Some helpful advice for return of hostilities” by Nicholas Stuart and appearing in the 25 August 2014
Canberra Times:
Ah, welcome back! Yes, the Parliamentary winter break always offers a good chance for pollies and their hard-partying staffers to escape dreary Canberra's cold and grab a bit of time in the sun. After all, it's a well-known fact that nothing ever happens (politically) during this entire period. What's that you say? Never been busier? Budget not passed? Economy stalling? Goodness gracious, but don't worry about that, I'm sure that nice Mr Tony Abbott has a terrific plan in his back pocket that will fix everything up quick smart. Nevertheless, and just in case he doesn't, it's obviously my civic duty to ride to the rescue with a few carefully chosen words to provide assistance. So here goes. Firstly a diagnosis of the problem, then the remedy. It's simple, really, and I'm sure my solutions will be of great assistance.
A cabinet full of old fuddy-duddies. A couple of problems here. Firstly, the hopeless ones are all on the frontbench while the talented ones sit further back. Unfortunately, the opportunity for a shake-up has passed with the winter break. Abbott can't afford to shuffle the ministry now because he'll be throwing the new chums into a baptism of fire without any chance to get across the issues in the portfolio. The counter-argument to this, of course, is that no one can really be worse than George "Voltaire" Brandis, Peter "chuckles" Dutton or what's his name, you know the bloke, he's Deputy Prime Minister, oh, it's on the tip of my tongue. No, sorry, lost it.
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