Our politics is a farce and you’re paying for the tickets

Those of you not into torturous, pantomime-level political inquisitions may not have been following recent events at the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption, or as it’s more onomatopoeically known, ICAC.

If you had, you might have heard that Sussan Ley, while leader of the Opposition on $442,643 a year of your money, drove from Canberra in her government-funded car with her government-funded staff, to the southern Riverina town of Finley to tell a fellow Liberal party member to “get fucked”.

There was a bit more to it than that, farcical moments about lost Liberal Party branch-stackers being told to piss-off back to Sydney and a man driving around the Barmah forest in a black ski-mask in the lead up to it all, but, you get the picture.

The ICAC also heard this month how those same Liberal Party men – and yes, they’re almost always men – called themselves The Reformers in a clear sign they’ve probably been watching too many Marvel movies while tied to a chair. And while it may all seem hilarious, this little band of loose-pizzled, Catholic white boys with too much time on their hands have now cost taxpayers many millions of dollars as the ICAC looks into their corrupt collection of donations for the Liberal Party, and why they thought nobody would notice them driving in a black ski mask in a shiny new BMW down the main street of Deniliquin.

Let’s move from there onto the Victorian Liberal Party, who just last month finished ridding themselves of the parliament’s Munchausen poster child, Moira Deeming. For the unknowing – and let’s not blame you – Moira Deeming is a member of the Victorian Parliament’s upper house, and up until last month, a member of the Liberal Party. More importantly, she’s paid $219,391 a year of your money.

The reason Moira parted company with the Liberal Party might have something to do with her constant use of the legal system to confront members of her own party. If you didn’t know, at a function in May, fellow Liberal MP Matthew Guy leaned over to speak to Moira in a crowded, presumably noisy room. As he did so, he placed his hand on her shoulder. Unbeknown to Mr Guy, or to anyone else within smelling distance of criminal law, that hand on the shoulder constituted “assault” and Moira was off to the police to report the shoulder-hand faster than you can say Herald-Sun headline.

It’s probably worthwhile to add, the opposition leader in Victoria, Jess Wilson, spent last month answering questions on the insanity of the hand-on-shoulder-assault-that-wasn’t, and presumably countless hours in the party room trying to fix Moira’s inability to understand what a headlock is, all while being paid $423,000 of your money. That might explain why the Liberals spearheaded their political attack this month with some compelling, well researched news. No, it wasn’t how they’ll reduce the state’s deficit, or what they’ll do about the alleged union corruption linked to the Victorian government. 

No, if they ever see a second of power, the Victorian Liberals will have red rubbish bins collected every week. Spellbinding stuff. It turns out the Liberal Party identifies with bags of dried dog shit more than you thought.

If you’d looked up from any of this mess, you might have noticed Pauline Hanson holidaying in Europe in $900 a night hotel rooms paid for by her working-class supporters who thought they were getting billboards calling for the Prime Minister’s sacking. (Oh, you naïve sweet, summer children.) When Pauline wasn’t busy taking other people’s money – which admittedly she has down to a fine art – and being the new Embarrassador to Italy, she was indulging in fashion shoots wearing an outfit stolen from a passing Sicilian Nonna. The unfunniest part of this joke? While Pauline was jetting around the world, she was being paid $340,000 of your money for the highly questionable pleasure of quaffing champagne with Gina in a swimsuit.

It gets even better when you realise that Anthony Albanese was busy backpedalling again this month over his idiotic, recidivist tendency to sit down with bogan podcasters and make a dick of himself – something you’d be forgiven for thinking four years in the Prime Minister’s chair had stopped him from doing. Fresh from his I’d like to shag Kylie Minogue embarrassment last month, he found himself joining in the joke about the Japanese Prime Minister, who’s a woman, presenting him with two melons. Ahahahah, get it? Tits? Melons? Whoar. Let’s reduce women to one-dimensional sex jokes again Anthony. Who said those white boys at the ICAC hearing were the only embarrassment in politics?

If you’re interested, Anthony Albanese is on $622,050 a year plus perks, but at least he spends most of it being the Prime Minister, even if some of it is spent tugging his forelock to Jillian Segal and searching for wealthy lobbyists to obey.

The joke of the Australian senate, Ralph Babet, is paid $239,270 a year to draw dicks on his notepad in parliament. Without a party or a policy in sight, he seems to spend most of his time on social media posting the equivalent of a toddler smearing shit on their bedroom wall – only the toddler has demonstrably higher intelligence.

Let’s not get started on the Queensland parliament hunting down citizens for singing From The River To The Sea, or the Premier For Violently Bashing His Own Citizens, NSW’s Chris Minns, who spent his time attacking a Royal Commission for not asking questions that were to his liking – just before he sat down with bogan-king Kyle Sandilands for a good old, swinging dicks podcast conversation that must have made every woman within hurling distance throw up on the spot.

What is the point of all of this? In Australian politics right now, we’ve entered Saturday Night Live levels of parody. And just like SNL, the only people laughing are the players. If you add up the cost of supporting the crop of people in politics mentioned here, most of whom were paid to represent you, you might come close to over $6 million a year. Add in the cost of corruption commissions and police time spent on either bashing their own citizens or investigating histrionic allegations, and you’re getting closer to $10 million, $12 million and counting. If you’re wondering why you can’t save for a deposit for a house, or why your job stacking shelves in Woolworths isn’t getting you anywhere, why not consider a career in politics in Australia?

You can tell people to get fucked in country town halls for $100 an hour and make up stories about assaults that never happened, drive around in a ski mask, tell shit sexist jokes that weren’t funny even at the Ferntree Gully pub in 1987, and stay up all night worrying about the colour of your weekly rubbish bin lid – all for the price of millions of dollars a year of money that isn’t yours.

This is Australian politics in 2026. Trivial side-shows and grift-maxxing on a grand scale and yes, all of it is a joke. But while we keep paying for it, the joke is always on us.