Ok, I realise that there are still a few hours to go and there have been a couple of late entries in the finalists so perhaps I should hold off. However, I’m confident that nothing can beat the winner so if Tony Abbott does outdo himself in the final hours, he can just remind himself of the 2010 election where he told us all that he won, it was just that Julia was still PM.

It was quite a strong field and David Leyonhjelm almost made the cut with his suggestion that union opposition to reducing minimum wage was a key barrier to pensioners getting jobs, because –  as Joe Hockey decided – we all should keep working till we’re very, very old.

But the final results are in, and I’m sorry for all those Queensland LNP members who tried so hard but to make it but failed. In some cases, like Matt Canavan, I rarely had any idea what they was talking about, but then it was obvious – neither did they.  An exception was recently appointed minister, David Littleproud, who told us that party room karaoke was “Partially cool @frankelly08 @PatsKarvelas compared to outback karaoke with @SenatorNash“ and “You can tell from my face it’s one of the best pies I’ve ever had!!!! Thanks Barcaldine Bakery.“. You can see the ministerial potential there from one of the keenest minds in the National Party.

Also, I decided to exclude Barnaby Joyce because I was worried that he’d expect the win to come with a $40,000 cheque and he’s already had enough disappointments like that for one year.

And while Donald Trump’s recent tweet would surely win hands down for his:  “In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!” I’ve decided to exclude Trump altogether from the competition because I’m still to decide if this is actual stupidity or an attempt to win votes. I believe it was an American who said that nobody ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the public… Or something like that. Whatever, I can’t decide whether Trump is really as stupid as he appears, or whether he’s actually a cagey, brilliant strategist. I would strongly lean to the former were it not for the fact that he is actually President and he does have more fans than I do and to call him stupid just sounds like jealousy.

So the final three placings are: In third place we have Malcolm Roberts. Now, if it were a prize for the consistency of stupid tweets, he’d even beat the T-rump. And if it were for tweeting things that contradicted something else he’d tweeted, he’d be in a class of his own. However, from the vast range of the man who didn’t believe he was, therefore that should be evidence that he’s not British but who insists that only empirical evidence matters, I have concluded that for sheer stupidity this tweet is the third place getter: “Every door I knock on says @QLDLabor puts Ipswich last. Except when it comes to corruption, that’s the only thing Labor excels at locally”. It just gets the nod over many, many of his others because it probably best explains what’s wrong with his tactics. Clearly if he were trying to win over votes for PHON he should have knocked on doors that didn’t already declare that they were anti-Labor. If you’re going to win an election, you have to talk to people that don’t think like you do, but then Malcolm Roberts thinks that anyone who doesn’t think like he does is part of a gigantic conspiracy to stop him finding his rightful place as Overlord of Australia.

In second place, we have Australia’s answer to the question that nobody asks, Tony Abbott. Abbott, the most misunderstood man in Australia! Why who could forget his promise to shirtfront Putin? While we assumed that it meant to tackle front on, Tony merely meant that he intended to put on a shirt before meeting the man. And when he said that he’d stop the boats, people presumed he meant that he’d stop the boats from leaving for Australia, he merely meant that he’d stop the boats from arriving, or failing that, stop their arrival being reported. And while he promised no undermining or sniping when Turnbull stole his job, he just meant that there’d be none until that particular press conference was over. So Tony gains second place for his wonderful take on Victoria’s euthanasia legislation: “Sometimes disagree with our 24th PM but congratulate him for being against Victoria’s right-to-kill bill”. This would have been our winner were it not for the obvious problem that Tony is a loser and therefore has to finish in second place in spite of deserving to win… just like the 2010 election and the Turnbull coup. This tweet manages stupid on a number of levels. Not only does it turn the “Right To Die” into the “Right to Kill” which would be like a defence lawyer arguing that their client can’t be charged with car theft because the owner of the car had also used the car in the past, but it also makes explicit the hollowness of his promise not to undermine Turnbull both by pointing out that he often disagreed with him, as well as referring to him our “24th PM”. To cap it off, he refers to it as the “right to kill bill” which not only channels a Tarantino movie, but also makes it sound like that he’s against Victoria’s decision to assassinate Shorten which would just be confusing to people not across the euthanasia debate. After all, the Liberals have been going to great lengths to suggest that Shorten is a combination of Charles Manson, Uriah Heep and Rasputin, so to suggest that he and the PM are against giving him the execution that would, quite frankly, be too kind for someone who’s responsible for everything from the GFC to drownings at sea and rising energy prices just makes them seem soft. All in all, the tweet is a jumbled confused mess… Just like Abbott’s time as PM.

But the winner has to be Malcolm Turnbull. Turnbull was recently fined for travelling without a lifejacket. He thought it was a bit “technical”, because well, you know, it just was because, well, even though he was breaking the law, he thought that like paying tax the law wouldn’t apply if you put enough water between you and what you’d done. Anyway, I have to give Malcolm the big prize for this: “After her long life of public service we say thanks to Lady Flo. Rest In peace. Joh and Flo devoted their lives to Queensland and its success and dynamism owes so much to their vision and leadership.”

Now, I know that there’s a long-standing tradition that you don’t speak ill of the dead. And when Maggie Thatcher died, there was a bit of controversy over whether it was appropriate to sing “Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead”. (Btw, did you know that it hit number one shortly after her demise. The BBC, however, chose not to play it.) Why I’m giving it the gong as the stupidest tweet of the year is the simple fact that Malcolm’s tweet led to more negative coverage than simply offering condolences about the death of someone who’d more or less left the political arena in the shadow of her husband’s disagrace. Once he added the bit about Joh and Flo devoting their lives to Queensland, he invited people to remind everyone exactly how much corruption flourished under Joh. (See John Birmingham on Crikey, for example) Not only did the Fitzgerald inquiry show that Queensland had the best police that money could buy, but Joh himself was lucky to escape criminal convictions; thanks mainly to a member of the jury who was determined to get him off. Of course, it may have been the same sort of luck that led to Joh finding piles of cash on his desk in brown paper bags.

Yep, Joh devoted himself to Queensland in the same way that Chopper devoted himself to ridding society of criminals – he usually needed a financial incentive. And, lest we forget, Joh was never universally admired in Queensland. Even at the height of his power, he was propped up by a gerrymander that ensured he only needed a handful of votes to be re-elected. No, Malcolm, your cloying attempt to engratiate yourself to Queenslanders just wins you “Stupid Tweet of the Year!”

But cheer up. At least you beat Tony!