A long serving Liberal party backbencher indicated today that he will not be renominating for the next Parliament.
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Frist!
And so we say “farewell” to Quartermaster Costello, he who stood watch over the silverware as the ruffians around him pocketed souvenirs on that fated last voyage. He who sank without trace and then bobbed up in recent months, smirca intacta – a medical miracle. Like the Cheshire Cat, one might hope only the hovering smirk will haunt us but I fear otherwise.
Opinion Pieces. Vol. 2 of the Memoirs. Interviews. A book of Opinion Pieces. Interviews. Appearances. Speeches. He has at least 30 years of such ‘public service’ ahead of him. Yearns he for the $$$ of the Speakers’ Circuit”?
Costello’s political career has be annulled on the grounds of non-consummation.
Nice, Katz.
I do feel a little for Glenn Milne though.
Really Petey quit ‘ey?
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The cushy job come thru Petey? The GFC delayed it yeah? Crumbs Johnnie got a job straight away with the Institute For Fascist World Domination. How come you always have to wait to get a go on the bike.
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Where do you work now Petey? ‘Ey? The Centre The Maintenance of the Lipless Wonders’ Tight Fist on the Moolah? That’d suit you to a tee. They all smirk there.
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Gee I wonder what the KevvieCrew are doing tonight.
It’s a blow for Glenn’s job hopes but creepy John Roskan from the IPA must have known something.
He was pretending he had no political ambitions a week ago and is now the first to nominate for Higgins. From what I have heard of him on radio there could be no one in Australia quite as fanatical, a right winger, as him.
Just the man for the job, I would say.
Those of us in the West will likely wish to see the corpse before any celebrating begins. It wasn’t that long ago that our current Prem had announced his own retirement only to be swept back into the Big Chair.
It could be that Costello realises that not only is the next election lost but that the Coalition will go further backwards.
Resulting in the election after it also being lost or just too big an ask for three more years of mediocrity, so get out now while the going does not look so bad
Ambi, that’s a marvellous image.
Ambigulous @1, clearly with Lord Darth In-Sidious Tip-Smirca, you don’t fully appreciate the power of the Smirk side of the force but there is an old trusted Jedi mind trick copied by The Ex-Emperor :
As someone mentioned on Blogocrats, Peter will probably go to work for Dollar Sweets pushing their new line of Costello Melts.
Surprised he stuck around as long as he did. Should have gone when Downer went. Although Dolly DID have a job to go to.
Although this gives the Libs some short term relief, its actually a problem for the Libs. While Costello was there it was possible they would install him as leader, having him take the fall at the next election and potentially allowing Turnball to come back later. Or Turnbull could be leader at the election and Costello lead them afterwards – not an inspiring option but at least credible.
Now they’ll probably destroy Turnbull by having him lead next time. If they lose narrowly he may survive, but if they go backwards he’ll never recover. And then what are they left with. Hockey’s the only option I can see. No one else looks remotely like a leader except perhaps for some of the young guns elected last time, who won’t be ready for years, if ever. They’re in real danger of becoming a revolving chair like the NSW Libs in the late 70s early 80s.
A+ for the entry title Mark. Nothing more to be said really.
Yep, myriad. Interesting that the big story in Ozpolitics tonight is literally a non-event – a failure to nominate.
well the MSM midget attention span is easily pulled diverted Mark, having slaked its thirst for hyperbole with the Indian racist student attacks reporting.
Speaking of which, could we have another thread on that please? I think the story deserves updating. Australians have finally noticed that there is India *and* China.
Well there you go: Talcum finally shuts the f*ck up for a few weeks, and his numbers improve!
Mark says:
Cheap shots at a long-serving, capable and honorable minister do Mark Bahnisch’s reputation for un-biased punditry no good.
There was plenty to disagree with Costello’s ministry – union-bashing IR, lead dragging on climate change, fire-sale privatisations, untimely gold-dumping, commercialised R&D, regressive and excessive tax cuts.
And he was fortunate in that AUS’s key economic partners – the USA and the PRC – both experienced massive economic booms during most of his ministry.
But the record shows that he presided over the longest running period of uninterrupted economic growth in AUS economic history. This despite a turbulent economic environment, including the Asia crisis and the GFC.
And his key financial and factoral policies – tighter regulation on Big Four bank mergers and high immigration of skilled labour – were the props that under-pinned the AUS economy enabling us to escape the GFC almost unscathed. As I predicted.
(The current slow down in growth is almost totally driven by things beyond the Treasury’s control: falls in the terms of trade and a surge in old economy manafacturing enterprises being moved off-shore.)
So perhaps now is the moment to give a little credit where it is due. And regret the passing of a a some-what hard done by potential political leader, good public servant and a nice man.
‘Although Dolly DID have a job to go to.’
Maybe Tip can advise the Cypriots on their economy.
@15 – myriad – I don’t think I’ve been following the story closely enough to really make any comment, but I’ll pass on the suggestion!
I guess he figures he already spent 11 years of his life cleaning up a Labour mess, and didn’t enjoy the thought of having to do it all over again.
Sorry, but its not quite the thrill I got when Ratty went.
Nevertheless, Costello’s outstanding achievements include:
Workchoices.
Persecuting people on single parent, disability pensions and unemployment benefits.
Destroying student unions.
Need I go on?
Yes well, i don’t think David Cameron will give up his seat to some bloke from Australia no matter how bad the Labour mess is.
It’s also probably too long a wait to enjoy the fruits of Labor’s good work again.
“Destroying student unions.”
But they are coming back, apparently. Even the Nationals are going to support the restoring legislation.
No wonder Costello has given up the ghost. He spent 30 years fighting the left in student politics, actually and de facto, and what he has got to show for it? An ex far left President of the Australian Union of Students is Deputy PM and (contra Peter), the PM heir apparent, and student unions are about to roar back into life.
I’d retire too in the same circumstances. A man can only take so much.
An objective assessment of Treasurer Costello has yet to be written. I suspect he could have been a better Treasurer than he was if Howard had let him.
Well Paul B, I think that’s in part because Ratty not only lost the election but his seat as well. Watching him get knocked off by one of the decent ABC reporters fab.
Speaking of psephological blunders: I was wrong.
Thats two refutations in quick succession, counting the refutation of my prediction on the QLD election. The ALP’s political dominance is beyond my comprehension.
I am a little bit shocked and dismayed by Costello’s pre-mature retirement from politics. I still think he was the L/NP’s best chance as a leader in the medium-term. On 17FEB09 I rashly predicted:
Costello’s bail bodes well for the L/NP in the short-term but bad in the longer term. Obviously the L/NP will benefit from the reduction in damaging leadership speculation. But it will lose a capable administrator and popular politician.
One can only speculate on the basis for his pre-mature retirement from politics (he is only 52 years old). It does not look like he will get his dream job as a marquee hire for a high-profile financial institution for $n,000,000 pa.
So his decision to quit likely is based on a sober and cold-eyed assessment of the L/NP’s political chances over the next one to three elections. The leaders of the LN/P must be feeling pessimistic over this time horizon.
The demographic auguries are not encouraging. Baby boomer cultural cohorts and NESB ethnic clans are not disposed to vote for it. The ALP’s political machine looks to be evolving into a proto-one party state.
I predicted a possible three-term ALP government in the same thread as above:
I speculate that Costello has access to internal party polling data that suggests a three-term ALP government is a probable outcome. The only way the ALP can lose elections these days is to be improbably corrupt and/or incompetent and/or unlovely. And Kevin Rudd’s ministry looks like neither of these.
If true it implies that Costello will spend the next four years on the Opposition benches waiting with only an outside chance at winning the 2013 election. That must look like a bridge too far for this ambitious man who has already spent too much time waiting for his chance.
More generally, his departure underlines the parlous state of the L/NP. Which now resembles a formerly wealthy grazier anxiously scanning the horizon for rain clouds in the midst of a prolonged and punishing drought.
I probably shouldn’t admit it, but I wish we’d had a chance to see what he’d been like as PM, just for a short while, mind.
think you might be on your own with that one furious balancing!
“ambitious man who has already spent too much time waiting for his chance”
nope, can’t see anything wrong with that sentence…
Jack, I wouldn’t be so sure that short-term doesn’t develop into a long-term strategy for the Libs here. I’ll put my prediction out there:
Mal Brough to take the seat of Higgins and finally they will finally have someone who may be able to compete with Kevin Rudd.
What a relief that must be. He sounded almost teary in Parliament yesterday as he thanked his family etc. And who wouldn’t be? What a joyless time he had, riding shotgun for the rat, (a resources boom notwithstanding.)
I once met an older couple, walking the streets of Bleakheath while I dished out censeless forms. I have no idea how the subject of Tip arose, they said they were inlaws, or neighbour’s of inlaws or somesuch, “a nicer man you could not hope to meet” they stressed. Really? Well I guess someone must have voted for him, as I wondered off. And being ‘nice’ would help in this. Had they said the same of ratty, they would have had hell to pay and deal with.
Had Costello been more (much more) ruthless he probably could have usurped ratty. So I guess that’s something in his favour. Although to out-ruthless ratty . . .
He did do the walk across the Bridge and he has a decent brother. Poor Tip. Good bye. You won’t be missed.
Smirking more than ever now.
(Apologies to Mozart, and the Turks)
Ooopsie my mind has been refreshed. He didn’t walk across the Bridge did he? He got rat-trapped on that one too.
Good one, Katz!
Thanks, Liam.
This morning I heard Tip saying he did a service to the Party by not knifing John Howard. Tip, that wasn’t a knife in your hand, old bean. It was a limp lettuce.
Here endeth the Lesson. Lettuce spray.
You’d hate to be remembered for all the useful things you didn’t do…
I guess he’s our side’s ( conservative) rough equivalent to your side’s Kim Beazley. ie nice enough bloke who didn’t quite get there.
I guess he’s our side’s ( conservative) rough equivalent to your side’s Kim Beazley. ie nice enough bloke who didn’t quite get there.
Worth saying twice, kingsley?
The thing is, I don’t believe Costello really was very nice at all. And while Beazley was a fine defence Minister, Tip was in hindsight a very very lazy Treasurer who did little beyond continue the privatisation started by Labor. I mean, even the GST wasn’t his idea. What can he take credit for?
There goes a fart in the bath without the bubbles.
Costello – nice?!!!
Wasn’t it him who made a vile remark in parliament about Nick Sherry which caused Sherry to try to kill himself? He did so knowing full well that Sherry was going through a dreadful time.
I remember Costello when he was King of Student Politics in Melbourne. And a nastier piece of work could not be possible. But, I’m sure he was charming when he was sucking up to the good people of Higgins.
LOL, Caroline.
Has Keating said anything yet? Surely someone must have stuck a mic under his nose by now and elicited some deathless remark or other.
I notice that Howard’s comment on this revealed his usual level of grace and humility.
Fine – unquestionably very unfortunate situation but he’s answered those criticisms see
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2008/s2363164.htm
Wilful – not going to get into a pointless debate where I criticise say Beazleys achievements and laud Costello’s and you do the reverse. Likewise if you guys want to maintain the rage against each and every significant conservative figure even when they pull the plug knock yourself out.
I disagreed with Hawkey on nigh everything but he seemed a likeable enough fella. I also think Keating went too far in some of his attacks then and now but I actually didn’t mind him as much as what many conservatives do.
Likewise I don’t mind Stephen Smith as a person and Lindsay Tanner seems an alright bloke too. Martin Ferguson has also remained true to his principles even if some of you guys aren’t too keen on him.
Even Julia Gillard I think would be alright to have a beer with even though I really feared we had a serious hard core leftie in the number two possie.
It doesn’t hurt too much to acknowledge the other side’s pluses on the odd occasion.
OK kingsley, feel free to educate me, what original thoughts did Costello have, what can he proudly put his name to? It very much seems to me that Howard can take credit (and opprobrium) for just about every novel thing that the Libs did while they were in power. Costello basically sat on top of a resources boom, which he had no control over but took credit for.
“what original thoughts did Costello have”
None, but he was very good at mastering his brief, as you would expect from a skilled barrister. And, also like a skilled barrister, he was a master of the theatre of Parliament (the courtroom).
However, like a lot of advocates, it was never clear whether he believed what he was saying. This was why he was never trusted by enough colleagues to put him into the leadership. He also didn’t believe enough in himself. The smirk and arrogance were, arguably, a cover for a lack of personal confidence. Costello was much like Andrew Peacock, another ‘obvious’ PM who never was.
There is a subtle distinction to be made with Malcolm Turnbull. While like Costello it’s not obvious what Turnbull believes in generally, he certainly doesn’t lack self-belief.
He also lost when he attempted to have Monash University disafiliate from the Australian Unon of Students at a Student General Meeting in 1979. Apparently the turning point was when his ally Michael Kroger informed the assembled students that “AUS is like Collingwood in the finals” and lost the votes of all the Law students whose classmates included champion Collingwood ruckman Peter Moore.
Julia Gillard, by the way, was not a far left President of AUS; she was at the most moderate end of the Left spectrum then, as she is now, and I never cease to be both amazed and amused at the mythology of Julia as an erstwhile Rosa Luxemburg.
Indeed, Paul. I knew Julia back in the early days of NUS when she was being quite generous with advice about how to reconstruct a national student union after the right (including many elements of the Labor right – though not from Qld) had destroyed AUS. It’s a really quite silly meme.
I should add that I had the chance to see the young Costello orating at the 1979 Annual Council and Special Council of AUS, and the contradictions in the man commented on by Tim Colebatch were evident even then – the clear-eyed charismatic comportment of the idealistic evangelical Protestant orator would alternate with the Smirk and the use of his verbal skills, force of personality and physical presence to browbeat people.
He was a bully.
“the mythology of Julia as an erstwhile Rosa Luxemburg”.
I don’t think anyone has claimed Gillard was ever a Spartacist. And it’s just as well that it is a myth, considering what happened to Luxembourg.
But I defer to Paul’s and Mark’s on-the-ground knowledge of the Deputy PM, circa 1979. Unlike them, I didn’t have the pleasure.
Jack S – Cheap shots at a long-serving, capable and honorable minister do Mark Bahnisch’s reputation for un-biased punditry no good.
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Mark is an un-biased pundit? When did that happen?
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But the record shows that he presided over the longest running period of uninterrupted economic growth in AUS economic history.
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Yep. Lucky wasn’t he?
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Sam – He spent 30 years fighting the left in student politics, actually and de facto, and what he has got to show for it? An ex far left President of the Australian Union of Students is Deputy PM and (contra Peter), the PM heir apparent, and student unions are about to roar back into life.
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I’ll bet that’s partially true. Student politics is really that nasty that a guy’d get elected to parliament, kiss and kick arse for twenty years, just so he can roll NUS. Ha! What a waste of fucking time.
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Mark – I knew Julia back in the early days of NUS when she was being quite generous with advice about how to reconstruct a national student union after the right (including many elements of the Labor right – though not from Qld) had destroyed AUS.
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Did you sing to her?.
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Did NUS take her advice? ‘Cause if she’s responsible for that we need to get her out of the government now!
Paul Burns @ 48 – he still is.
I still wish he’d hung around, though. He would’ve made absolutely sure the Libs spent the next 15 years eating their own entrails. What could be better?
Here’s an excerpt from the most accidentally revealing political obit I’ve read today:
Odd that it’s only now he’s gone that Tim Colebatch and The Age are publishing this material. Well, not really. If they’d reported the incidents when they might have been that ‘news’ stuff, the insider leak tit would have been quickly withdrawn.
Yes, I’ve never claimed to be one, for sure, Adrien.
1988, in my case, Sam. And it was a pleasure. She organised a nice party in Carlton and was a very charming and smart person.
A very long term staffer at the Monash Student Association is reported to have been rung up by a media outlet to discuss what Costello was like as President. She supposedly said that she doesn’t talk about those she has nothing good to say about, and that amounted to two presidents over 30 years, Costello being one of them.
I can’t confirm this story, but it has the ring of truth. If he’s been a nicer person I think he would have had a lot more support in the party when the time came to take Howard on. The problem was that he wasn’t nice to those beneath him who stood up to him, and something about his manner made that more memorable than it would be from other people.
That said, his staffers do seem to have been deeply loyal to him, so he was probably a good boss if you started out in his good books.
# 53 Mark Jun 16th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Thats a revealing admission.
I obviously have philosophical values, but they do not align with any particular ideology, party or politician.
As soon as you “marry yourself to a position” you stop analyzing and start advocating. Nothing wrong with advocacy but it means that wishes easily overwhelm thinking.
Invariably I stumbled into a kind of free-lance Machiavellianism, quite alien to the tribalist sentiments of most committed activists.
Einstein
But I haven’t wed myself to any positions, Jack. I am merely conscious of my own values and how they colour the judgements I make. That doesn’t make me incapable of thought or rigorous analysis.
I suggest you read Weber on science as a vocation, if you don’t get where I’m coming from:
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/moriyuki/abukuma/weber/lecture/science_frame.html
And flogging dead horses. Well said Jack
Well distorted, Jack. :-/
More comedy gold from Tony Abbott:
Gawd help us – is he saying that with Costello gone, the Libs will be forced to recruit competent candidates? That would definitely be a gain for the Libs. But then a competent credible Liberal Party might stand a chance of winning office again – I suppose that’s where the country loses.
Lolz, GT
56 Mark Jun 17th, 2009 at 3:15 am
I am not suggesting you are a moron or mindless dupe. Although you have a fatal flaw in your scientific methodology: unwillingness to submit your theories to predictive tests.
I am criticizing your political enthusiasms. Although to be fair Mark is by far and away not the worst offender in this area.
You have an embarrassing tendency to jump onto the latest Left-of-Centre political bandwagon. All over Rudd and then Bligh like a rash on the morrow of their victories. Typical Left-wing intellectual “bliss was that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven” stuff.
But, like Charlie Brown invariably getting the football pulled by Lucy, this winds up with you flat on your back. Typically after a wildly flailing air kick at policy goals is betrayed by a politician.
So you express surprise and indignation when Rudd’s credentials as a carbon curber are and Bligh’s pretensions to public ownership of utilities are revealed in tatters. I could have told you about all that well before you lost your objectivity. Oh wait a minute…I did! But those messages came via the Strochiverse so obviously a suspect source.
I will spell it out again. AUS is evolving into a “kinder, gentler” form of one party state as the ALP consolidates its grip on all tiers and branches of government. Partly because logistic changes are forcing the populus into a statist strait-jacket. Mainly because, for status-anxiety reasons, Boomers and NESB’s would rather die than vote L/NP. (Much as Doomers and ESB’s would not vote ALP from 1949-72.)
The ALP is a power machine designed to carve up the spoils of political victory and distribute them amongst the operators whilst tossing the scraps to its long suffering base. The largely docile intelligentsia meekly accepts the ALP apparatchik’s diktats in return for occasional ideological pantomimes (“Sorry Day”, 2020 conferences, ETS schemes).
On economic-ecologic issues the ALP ministry will take the path of least resistance between largely Right-liberal private interests and largely Left-”corporal” public opinion. Default tendency towards the Right-liberals until some outrage or crisis forces a Left-wing shift towards public opinion.
On ethnic-civic issues the ALP ministry will take the path of least resistance between largely Left-liberal private interests and largely Right-”corporal” public opinion. Default tendency towards the Left-liberals until some outrage or crisis forces a Right-wing shift towards public opinion.
A punditariat more likely to keep its distance from politicians blandishments is more likely to do its basic job, which is to predict the next few moves.
Mark says:
Puh-leese, don’t try to teach your Weberian grandmother how to suck wertfrei eggs.
I “get where you are coming from” alright. I’ve been there before myself. Guilty of it a bit when Keating won “the sweetest victory of all” in 1993. The subsequent mutation of that administration learned me my lesson.
Was it really just Tip’s sad little exit from the stage, that has given Malcolm that spring in his step, or was it Annabel Crabb’s Quarterly Essay, confirming that Turnbull is indeed a man with no convictions, but that’s OK because he is such a lovable rogue.
Omigod. This is exactly what the ALP fears most, an ego-inflated Turnbull, chest pouting, rounding for the fight, with Annabel Crabb the wind beneath his wings.
Or maybe, as Keating reckons, you light him up, and he just fizzes for a while, and nothing happens.
Double Dissolution coming up?
Jack – Thats a revealing admission.
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Yeah. It reveals that he’ll take a side on this or that.
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I obviously have philosophical values, but they do not align with any particular ideology, party or politician.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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Priceless. Come on Jack sometimes you sound like you work for the Right-Wing Culture Mercenaries PR department.
Jack: “AUS is evolving into a “kinder, gentler” form of one party state as the ALP consolidates its grip on all tiers and branches of government.”
Stuff and nonsense. WA election saw the Coalition elected. NSW ALP teeters. I’m not sure who you’re wedded to, but get the pantry checked Jack. Some mouldy food’s probably making you ingest hallucinogens.
1981 through 1984 in my case.
# 64 Ambigulous Jun 17th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
I have a better record of psephological prediction than anyone posting on this site. So look at the scoreboard before trying to play the man.
The ALP is evolving into the (default) Natural Party of Government in the Baby Boom era. Just as the L/NP evolved into the Natural Party of Government in the post-war era.
Politically, most boomers and NESBs regard the L/NP as toxic. On policies, the ALP has naturally evolved to manage Big Government which is effective in current circumstances.
I dont say that the L/NP will not win government for the next generation. Just that its victories will tend to occur only in the breech, so to speak, after a long run of ALP governmental incompetency and iniquity.
The federal L/NP may have better prospects, on the odd occasion when cultural identity or national security issues predominate. But those are exceptional moments.
State L/NP’s have lost 21 out of the last 22 state elections. In WA the L/NP have a knife-edge margin. No doubt the NSW ALP government will fall next election. Although this process has to go through the formality of actually happening.
The federal ALP has copied the success of the state ALP’s in matters of style and substance. Putting forward an inoffensive leader, a massive political research and public opinion back-room and hugger-mugger relations with the Big End of Town.
The fact that Costello is bailing from the federal L/NP tells me that he thinks their prospects are bleak for another one, probably two electoral cycles. So the most likely date for the occurrence of the next L/NP government will be in 2016.
I have been a bit skeptical of the “ALP = Natural Party of Government” thesis over the years. Its not an iron law.
But, on any fair assessment of psephological probability, the L/NP should have won the QLD election. And Costello should have looked forward to leading the L/NP to the 2013 election. That means that the game is somehow skewed towards the ALP.
Its not as if it hasnt happened before. The L/NP appeared to have an iron lock on government for most of the post-war era.
Costello cant even get a job with NAB for that banks fear of offending ALP power brokers. That tells me plenty about the emerging political dispensation.
Jack 2: “I have been a bit skeptical of the “ALP = Natural Party of Government” thesis over the years. Its not an iron law.”
compare
Jack 1: ““AUS is evolving into a “kinder, gentler” form of one party state as the ALP consolidates its grip on all tiers and branches of government.”
**********************
I rest my case, M’lud. My Learned Friend appears to be gyrating, if not hallucinating.
Sure, Jack. The game is skewed by the fact that the larger number of people voted Labor. How could the real behaviour of real people in the real world be so unfairly skewed against your fair assessments of psephological probability?
In the Strocchiverse, when Labor can win government by the nefarious method of gaining a majority of votes in a majority of seats, that shows just how skewed the game is. Of course, when L/NP win it’s just the natural order reasserting itself.
And don’t get me started on the ahistorical absurdity of complaining that the ‘game is skewed’ towards Labor in Queensland — hey! You’re treading on Joh’s Gerrymander there mate!
As for Costello not getting a job, he couldn’t get a job at any overseas or investment banks either — does the ‘ALP power brokers’ reach really extend all the way to London? In the Strocchiverse, it surely does. Phone calls and shit-sheets faxed to Tony and Gordon, I guess?
Thanks for the larf, Jack old boy!
Costello’s lack of joy on the employment front can also probably be put down to the quality of his references. He really shouldn’t have listed Glenn Milne and Andrew Bolt on his resume.
No, look here Jack. Do you wish to be taken seriously?
OK: one point. Neither you nor I know what the criteria for a job at NAB were. It is possible Peter Costello did not meet the bank’s requirements. This happens all the time. It’s life, as we job-seekers know it.
Easy enough for an unsuccessful applicant to conjure up a conspiracy or allege foul play. But also a waste of breath.
As mentioned previously, Jack does not make scientific predictions. He makes what Popper calls prophecies.
Sadly there’ll be other smurkers.
I think Tip should open a nice little corner shop. I can see him running a mixed business/newsagent sort of place. Get Tanya in to a bit of overtime. The kids can help out on the week-end. Keep them out of trouble and he’d be able to spend so much time with his family. It would be perfect for him.
The ALP is evolving into the (default) Natural Party of Government in the Baby Boom era. Just as the L/NP evolved into the Natural Party of Government in the post-war era.
There’s always one of those soup kitchens his brother runs. 
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Well I think it’s attempting to assume that place yes. That explains all of Kevvie’s moralizing.
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No job for Petey? Poor Petey.
Fine @ 73, I wouldn’t trust the prick with a milk round.
No, you’d have to hire a work experience kid for that.
“Costello can’t even get a job with NAB for that banks fear of offending ALP power brokers.”
Maybe this section from Tim Colebatch’s political obit for Costello points to an alternative explanation:
What’s that saying about the people you kick on the way up again?
Fine, I expect he’d sell $weeties in the corner shop, yes? And strictly casual employment and no penalty rates for any employees he might take on!
Bye bye Peter. I am for one am not going to miss you. Great you got us a budget surplus when every fool was making money; but not so great you chose to invest none of it towards a low carbon economy or taking enough action to address climate change.
Pity about all those years of branch stacking and factional warfare within the Victorian Liberal party to bolster your support base. It has all come to nothing.
This man perfectly reflected the meth-headed-metrosexualised-uteman grin that accompanied most of the stories about the Liberal Party and their cosmic relationship with interest rates. Now the dealer has moved on and the victims have been left with a strange look on their faces, demotions at work and an almost impossible reputation to deal with.