While I’m thankful that my son has reached an age where Santa no longer brings him things that need to be assembled on Christmas Eve, part of me must nostalgically yearn for the frustration and anguish of trying to following the instructions written by someone whose first language is not Clarity. You see, I bought an outdoor table and chairs. While the writing on the box promised that it was easy to assemble, I find claims made by manufacturers even less reliable than claims made by politicians. I mean, it’s only a table and chairs, so how hard can it be? It’s just a matter of attaching some legs, right?

Now, as some of you have probably guessed from my admission that I actually try to read the instructions, I’m not exactly a handyman. You might say that as a handyman, I make Tony Abbott look like a successful Prime Minister… Actually that’s probably going too far. The Ikea bookcase is still standing and I don’t need to go around making statements like, “It would have still been ok, if I hadn’t started putting books on the shelves!”

Anyway, I’ve survived Christmas unlike a lot of turkeys so I guess I should be grateful.

Speaking of turkeys, I thought it would be an appropriate time to make my political predictions for 2018. I didn’t make any predictions for 2017, but it won’t impress anyone if I make them now. For example, predicting that Turnbull will still be PM at the end of 2017 is mildly impressive if you made it in January, by late December, it’s even less so than pointing at my bookcase and saying that this has lasted twice as long as Abbott did as PM… Although Abbott’s time as PM seemed like an eternity.

Anyway, here are my predictions for 2018:

1. The Murdoch Press will start speculating about Bill Shorten’s leadership. They will quote anonymous sources and completely ignore how hard it is for Labor to depose a sitting leader thanks to the rules introduced by Kevin Rudd. This will continue until a major stuff-up by a Coalition minister makes such big news that they have to spend time reporting that, instead of quoting a senior Labor figure saying that Shorten has until some arbitrary date to perform some highly unlikely task such as getti;ng Mark Latham to speak to the Labor faithful on the topic of “I Had My Chance To Be PM And I Have Nobody To Blaim But Myself!”
2. Scott Morrison will introduce the Budget by saying that everything happened exactly as they predicted about from a couple of surprises that they didn’t plan for. However, in spite of these, and there still being a deficit, we’re now in a position to give tax cuts to everyone earning over $60,000. These, of course, will be linked to the company tax cuts and we’ll be told that we need to follow Trump’s lead on this. The Liberals will continue to behave as though being in agreement with Trump is somehow electorally good because Australians just love US presidents and it’s only lefties that wouldn’t want to follow Donald blindly. Scomo will also increase the Defence Budget on the grounds that the US has to go to war soon and there must be a good reason, so we’d have to join them.
3. Adani will announce in February that they’re starting work on the mine next month. They’ll do this again in August. They may further announce that they’ve started preliminary work on planning and hope to start issuing contracts in December just as soon as they’ve got their finance in order.
4. Matt Canavan will blame his mother for Adani not getting the finance.
5. Donald Trump will again threaten to withhold funding from countries who vote against US proposals at the United Nations. Nobody will think to suggest that if the only reason these countries are getting aid is so that they’ll vote the way the country giving them aid wants them to, that it constitutes a bribe and would be regarded as corruption if you tried the same thing at a local council.
6. Malcolm Turnbull will tell us what a good job he’s doing. When pressed for details, he’ll become aggressive and say that asking him to justify his statements is exactly the sort of thing that could lead to Bill Shorten being Prime MInister and not even Labor supporters want that.
7. Steve Andrew, the PHON candidate elected in Queensland, will clash with Pauline Hanson resulting in him leaving the party and becoming an independent. Ok, you may not consider this a daring prediction given that it’s 50/50 with Pauline throwing him out of the party for failing to genefluct in her presence.
8. Tony Abbott will tweet something which could only be considered as undermining for Turnbull. Tony will say that he didn’t mean it to be taken that way, but provide no further clarification.
9. There will be an IT disaster involving a government department.
10. Centrelink wait times will be discussed and the minister will provide details that over half people calling don’t get a busy signal, and that people who visit an office obtain a ticket number as quickly as they do from the deli counter at Woolworths or Coles..
11. There will be an international incident when High Commissioner, George Brandis, attempts to explain his role in helping with the Brexit negotiations. It may be something to do with the translation of “big beast”
12. Physics lecturers will start using the statements of the Coalition to explain Schrodinger’s Cat. For example, they’ll say, consider the way that the NBN is both a great success because of the Coalition but a “total wreck” because of Labor.

Well, that’s about it for my 2018 predictions. Piece of cake, really…

Update: Even though, I’d paid for the outdoor setting and taken it to the trade desk like they asked, when I went to pick it up in a borrowed vehicle. (Mine was too small for it to fit) Bunnings had managed to lose the setting. After the person on the desk tried ringing several times, nobody seemed concerned enough to offer a solution. After half an hour, I was given a refund.