My wife doesn’t appreciate the Liberal Party’s great achievements. Or mine for that matter. She seems to be confused about what a great job we’re both doing.

About the time that the Liberals took over because the Labor government were such terrible money managers, I decided it was time that we took stock of our personal finances. “Look at this mortgage!” I told my wife, “It’s more money than either of are likely to earn next year. Our grandchildren will be paying it back!”

She seemed to think that it was all under control because we were managing to pay off the minimum each month, but I managed to convince her that the only thing to do was to take out an even bigger mortgage so that we could clear any other outstanding debts and to invest in our future. “You leave it all up to me,” I told her “because people like me are good at managing money.”

“What do you mean, ‘people like you;’? Is it because you’re a man?” she wanted to know, immediately betraying her obvious left-wing, feminist bias. However, I refused to be sidetracked and managed to convince her that I could manage the money side of things and she wasn’t to worry her pretty little head about such matters because she’d let us get into the mess in the first place.

To her credit, she didn’t show much interest in what was happening after the first few months of me giving her daily reports of how well we were doing. Then last year, she suddenly decided to ask me how things were going.

“Excellent,’ I told her. “Next year, for the first time in over a decade we’ll earn more than we spent.”

“What!” she yelled. “What do you mean, for the first time in over a decade?”

“Well, it’s been hard getting the budget back under control. I mean, thanks to your prolific spending a few years ago on things like a car to get you to work, I’ve had to take out a second and third mortgage. But it’s all good now. Next year, we’re going to be back in the black.”

“Really?” she inquired.

“Yes, I’ve bought a share in a racehorse that won the Melbourne Cup.”

“Your horse won?”

“Yes, my horse won next year’s Cup.”

“But next year’s cup hasn’t happened yet. You can’t say you’ve won next year when it hasn’t happened yet.”

“Look,” I told her, “the Prime Minister just said that they’d brought the budget back into surplus next year. If he can use the past tense about a future event, why can’t I?”

She didn’t seem convinced. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 recession and the fake news media have led her to believe that Morrison was wrong about being back in surplus just because it didn’t actually happen. And, to make matters worse, I can’t get her to understand that I was right either, owing to the simple unfortunate technicality that my horse won’t be running in the Cup because it hasn’t actually been broken in owing to the fact that it’s too vicious for anyone to get near it. But this just shows how strong it is and how it has exactly the right sort of determination and spirit that it needs to be a winner.

I tried to tell her this, but she simply said, “The fact is it’s not a winner. I mean, it hasn’t actually won anything, has it?”

“I totally reject the premise of your question!” I told her.

“How?” she demanded.

“By telling you that I reject the premise. That’s how Mr Morrison does it.”

“But on what grounds are you rejecting the premise?”

“On the grounds that I don’t accept it.”

Unable to pursue a calm and rational argument, she left the room, muttering something about “Utopia” not being a made-up show.

There seems to be nothing I can do to convince my wife that both Morrison and I are right and that it’s the actual events that are the error, not our judgement. In fact, she didn’t seem to understand the fact that our mortgage was now three times what it used to be was thanks to my excellent financial management. If it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t be able to now borrow in excess of two million dollars in order to help us get through then next few months because of all the expenses associated with some of my excellent decisions such as purchasing materials that will enable us to start fracking in our backyard once the silly rules preventing such from such an enterprise are removed when Tim Smith becomes Premier of Victoria. Honestly, you’ve no idea how much red tape is involved in getting a fracking licence in suburban Melbourne.

It should be obvious that it’s only thanks to me that we’re in this position and that she should show a little gratitude to me and ScoMo, but no, it’s all, blame, blame, blame. Why she even suggested that the budget was terrible for women over thirty five because they’d actually find it harder to get work after the youth subsidies. She completely overlooks that the infrastructure spending will mean that they have nicer roads to travel on while they look for work and all the promised mental health support if they can’t cope with not getting it. That’s the trouble with the left. They’re just never grateful.