Life changed for the media this week with the announcement by Tony Abbott of the new Opposition front bench. As I have discovered, what I said as the Leader of the Nationals in the Senate attracts more attention when said from a position in the Coalition's Shadow Cabinet. Everyone from the Prime Minister down is listening and telling me what I can and cannot say. This is what I told the media after our first Shadow Cabinet meeting in Sydney on Friday: ''In a way it's kind of convenient because every time I get a difficult question I can say, well that's a view of shadow cabinet which I can't discuss.''
Saturday’s newspapers and online websites have carried more commentary than a Rudd Government White Paper. Laurie Oakes is one to always take seriously but even he is looking to a greater power for some explanations with this Opinion piece – Some politicians are off the planet - in the Herald Sun.
“A WHILE ago I heard a radio interview with a retiring editor of one of the mass-market US newspapers.
Asked about some of the big stories he'd published over the years, he referred with particular pride to a front-page scoop about space aliens disguised as humans living on Earth.
It included the claim that there were 16 aliens in the US Senate. An outraged senator phoned to protest. There were not 16 aliens among his colleagues, the senator said. There were 24.
That got me wondering how many aliens we've got in our Parliament. Some are obvious, of course.
Kevin Rudd gives himself away every time he lapses into Klingon at question time or at news conferences.
Peter Garrett? Hardly disguised at all.
Tony Abbott is betrayed by ears that Star Trek's Mr Spock would die for.
But when Abbott, elevated to the Liberal leadership, unveiled his new front bench, it was immediately clear that we could easily match the Yanks, alien for alien.
Eric Abetz, the hardliner's hardliner, is a political Dalek. Nick Minchin obviously comes from another planet - one where there is no global warming caused by human activity.
Film buffs will recall the 1985 movie Cocoon, about a group of elderly people rejuvenated by aliens. It is the only plausible explanation for the resurrection of Bronwyn Bishop, Philip Ruddock and Kevin Andrews.
Climate spokesman Greg Hunt must have been taken over by some kind of shape-shifting organism similar to The Thing from Outer Space.
How else to explain how a strong believer in the need to put a price on carbon (he wrote his university thesis on it) can become a harsh critic of the whole idea overnight?
And then there's National Party Senate leader Barnaby Joyce. His first few days as shadow finance minister were enough to convince quite a few of his Liberal colleagues - those wanting to preserve the economic legacy of John Howard and Peter Costello - that he is definitely an alien life form.
Laurie continued, but did not identify which alien life form I am, only that I am an alien. So if any of you have any thoughts…
From media tart to a force to be reckoned with – the heading in The Sydney Morning Herald is obviously because I live in Queensland - has Peter Hartcher summing up the year: As 2009 comes to a close, ask yourself who have been Australia's most influential political leaders this year. Kevin Rudd, certainly, but who's next on the list?
I nominate Barnaby Joyce. From the time he was elected to the Senate in 2004 until last week, the media and political mainstream refused to take him seriously. It's easy to see why… But Joyce has now upgraded from maverick to force majeure.
Consider what he achieved, almost single-handedly, this year. To start with, he gave the National Party new purpose and identity in rejecting the Rudd Government's emissions trading scheme.
I am a regular contributor to The Punch and today David Penberthy has chosen to compare me with Bob Dylan in Barnaby knock knock knockin’ on Kevin’s door. Aliens maybe, but Bob Dylan, that’s a higher life form. Dave wrote: Joyce has now written seven opinion pieces for our website The Punch and the marvellous thing about all of them is that you could buy a pack of Gitanes, slip into your skivvy and beret, and recite random passages aloud in a Soho coffee shop with Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue playing in the background, and the critics would hail you as the greatest beat poet since Ginsberg.
He also made this interesting point: Joyce has had three different press secretaries working for him in the past 12 months but his opinion pieces and press releases have maintained the same tone throughout. Either he employs good mimics or he writes them all himself; I suspect it is the latter.
The author of this blog thanks you,
Barnaby