The Mad Marathon by Mungo MacCallum

Author:Mungo MacCallum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Schwartz Publishing Pty. Ltd
Published: 2013-09-15T16:00:00+00:00

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Just how dislocated was shown by yet another Peter Slipper fiasco, this time in partnership with Clive Palmer, the fantasist who would be prime minister. Palmer was having trouble registering his resurrected version of the United Australia Party; one of the problems was that someone else had already registered something called the Uniting Australia Party. It had never appeared above the political horizon and probably never would, but the Electoral Commission felt, with some justification, that there was a risk of confusion between the two names.

But there was a way around it: if Palmer could persuade at least one sitting member of the current parliament to defect to his UAP, registration would be automatic. He had tried duchessing Tony Windsor and made desultory attempts at a couple of others, but with time running out Slipper looked like his best bet.

Slipper, it appeared, was willing; he put in his application to join. But while Palmer was in the process of ratifying it he faced his first grassroots revolt. There was already a putative UAP candidate for Slipper’s seat of Fisher, who refused to go quietly, and there was some considerable disquiet among the wider membership (now in the order of 700 people) about enrolling a proven loose cannon like Slipper. So, whether he jumped or was pushed, Slipper was out before he got in, and Palmer was forced to rename his brainchild the Palmer United Party – with the unfortunate acronym of PUP.

Had Slipper’s application stuck, it would have meant he’d sat in the House of Representatives as a member of three separate parties, and also as an independent. He was denied this honour, reportedly because Palmer’s advisers feared that he might be a plant, a mole for Tony Abbott. On the face of it, this appeared unlikely; after all, Slipper’s defection from the Liberals to become Labor’s nominated speaker had promoted him to number one on Abbott’s list of enemies.

Perhaps Palmer’s advisers were just playing it safe. Who knew where Slippery Pete would go next? He may even have had his eye on the world record for political flexibility, held by that late, great Australian William Morris Hughes. At a function held to celebrate his fifty years as an MP, it was noted that Hughes had joined every known Australian political party except the Country Party; why the exception? Hughes, sharp as ever, replied, ‘Well, I had to draw the line somewhere.’ It was not clear whether Peter Slipper, if given the same opportunities, would show the same restraint.

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