Now, there’s one thing I love and that’s consistency. I’m not going to talk about my first wife, or even mention her, but she was extemely inconsistent. She’d say something one day, and then the next day, argue something completely different. I think that if you say something, you should try and make sure that you don’t have an inconsistent position. Not like my first wife, who I’m not going to mention at all. That’s why I’m voting Liberal in the next election, they’re the “no excuses” party that keep their promises!

But in this modern world, being adaptable is very important also. That’s why it’s possible for Phillip Morris to sue Australia for the plain packaging laws.

Last year, tobacco company Philip Morris told the Sydney Morning Herald on January 13 that plain packaging hasn’t stopped people smoking. According to Chris Argent, their spokesman at the time:

”What matters is whether fewer people are smoking as a result of these policies – and the data is clear that overall tobacco consumption and smoking prevalence has not gone down.”

Yet now the tobacco giant is suing the government over its lost profits because of plain packaging. Strange that.

Just like I found it strange when I heard a spokesman for Macdonalds argued that ads in children’s TV program didn’t change kids behaviour. Gee, I thought, if were a shareholder for Macca’s, I’d be upset that with them donating money to a television company when it wasn’t going to increase profits…

Which is why a vote for Tony Abbott is a vote for against same sex marriage. What do you mean that he promised to think about a conscience vote if elected PM? Next you’ll be telling me that Joe Hockey promised a surplus, which he told us that he didn’t and that Labor just implied that he did by circulating a video of him promising a surplus in his first term and every year after that.

That video is being shown out of context because when you see the whole thing, it’s not clear which election he’s talking about, but let’s move to the main point of what I’m writing, which is to address the vicious smear campaign against Bronwyn Bishop. She’s been called “out of touch”, “nasty”, “vindictive”, “only out for her own interests” and a whole range of other things when her colleagues have been asked why she’s been such a great stalwart of the party over the years. But some of them are worried that Labor are trying to nobble her because of concern that should Abbott’s poll numbers drop any lower that Bronwyn may start to remind people of why she left the Senate in the first place – to become Australia’s first female Prime Minister. Labor are trying to destroy her before this becomes a reality, according to someone prepared to be quoted on the condition that I don’t quote them without adding that phrase “sources close to the Speaker” so that nobody would know who it was actually was – (even though everyone would immediately then presume that it wasn’t Turnbull and therefore, it must be Christopher Pyne) – that we’d already had a female PM in Jullia Gillard, the “source” dismissed this telling me that Labor ones don’t count because their not legitimately elected, The source then went on to say that she saw a newspaper poster that said: “Bishop for PM?”

“I think that was referring to Julie,” I suggested.

“How was she meant to know that?” my source continued. “You know none of us ever read anything. If Joe had read the whole Fairfax article he’d have known that it didn’t suggest he was corrupt. Just that if you paid a large amount of money to go to a dinner then you might get to talk to him. But that wouldn’t affect his decision-making, because he never listens to anyone anway, if he did, he’d have stepped down as Treasurer long ago and taken on one of those ministries where you don’t have to really do anything like Minister for Women, which just involves announcing that you’re looking into a childcare policy because, now that women have the vote, it’s really only having children that concerns them. Or Aboriginal Affairs which just involves a week long camping trip… even less if there’s a terrorism alert. It’s just like how donations from clubs had no effect on Kevin Andrews’ decision-making, Kevin Andrews had always been a strong supporter of people gambling as much as they want to. Personally, I find reading anything just confuses me. This is all off the CD, by the way.”

When I suggested that they meant “off the record”, the source insisted that we’d moved on from the days of records and the Liberal Party is up with the times and quite “hep”.

“Look at our progress on that NBN thing. Soon people will be able to make phone calls from one side of the country all the way to the other without even needing to contact the operator for a long distance call… Which reminds me, all this travel expenses nonsense, Bronwyn was in Albury on official business.”

“What official business?” I asked.

“Well, she went to Albury in her capacity as chair of the Parliamentary committee into work-life balance to do research.”

“And what did she find?”

“She found that when you’re at a wedding with a bunch of other Liberals the lines between work and life can get rather blurry. And not just because of the drinks that they were serving.”

“So who did she interview?

“Lots of people.”

“And what did she say about them in her report?

“Nothing, they weren’t very interesting.”

“Ever wondered why there are so many photos of cats on the internet?”

“The thing is it isn’t the number of cats on the internet. The important thing is that we’ve stopped the boats.”

“Funny, but I thought you might say that!”

“Well as Tony Abbott said the other day, one of the reasons this government has succeeded is that we never talk about ourselves. Never. We’re great at not talking about ourselves or big-noting ourselves. In fact we’re probably better at it than anybody.”

“Is that why you always talk about Labor?”

“Did you know that they plan to let terrorists into the country via red carpets?”

Yep, consistency I thought. That’s why I never mention my first wife.