The Bottom Line

It’s not easy being the new leader of the Opposition after being turfed out of Government – just ask William Hague, Ian Duncan Smith and Michael Howard. Here, after briefly pushing his poll ratings into double figures, Liberal leader Brendan Nelson, this week slumped back into single figures.

What’s worse is that the only politician with a lower rating is the leader of the Liberal state opposition in Western Australia, Troy Buswell, who recently survived a leadership challenge after admitting sniffing a chair-seat recently vacated by a female staffer. But I’m sure that’s small consolation to Mr Nelson.

Stripping Away The Spin

It’s just what every squeaky clean aspiring prime minister needs as the country prepares for a general election. The press is full of the revelation that Labor leader Kevin Rudd paid a visit to a New York strip club some years ago and was asked to leave for “inappropriate behaviour”, ie touching the artistes. While a Labor MP with him denies anything like that happened, Rudd himself says he was too drunk to remember, which hardly helps.

Not a good look for someone who stresses his family and Christian values but many people feel this will play well with the average Aussie. Queensland Premier Peter Beatty said it showed he had “blood in his veins”, a remark you could probably hear repeated in various forms in pubs and around barbies from Brisbane to Perth.

Even feminists have defended him. Eva Cox, from the Women's Electoral Lobby, said: "Going on the piss for one night basically, and doing something dumb is not a cardinal sin -- it's obviously not part of what he does generally. You can't condemn somebody for getting on the piss, we would never have elected Bob Hawke in that case." (Bob Hawke being a champion toper who became the country’s most popular prime minister).

Controversial Cleric or Just A Boofhead?

Politics here can be quite colourful. We start in October last year with Australia’s senior Muslim cleric, Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali who compared scantily-clad women to “uncovered meat”, the inference, later denied, being that they had only themselves to blame if they were molested by men. This provoked a storm of protest from all sections of society.

Fast forward to this week when the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, warned members of the NSW State Government that they faced consequences in their religious life if they supported a bill to extend stem cell research. More outrage, including from NSW Cabinet Minister Nathan Rees who compared the cardinal to “that serial boofhead, Sheik Alhilali.”

Another Cabinet Minister and Catholic, Frank Sartor, said the remarks were reminiscent of the Dark Ages and added: “I’m very sceptical about people who claim to speak in the name of God….because if you look at history, people have been burnt in oil in the name of God.”

No word from the controversial cardinal as to whether that’s what he has in store for Frank and any other MPs voting the wrong way, but I can tell you that a “boofhead” is defined as a fool by my Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary (yes, really), probably based on “bufflehead”, buffle being an obsolete word for buffalo.