Match wits with Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane who has made up some bunch of crap to look like an exciting magazine-style quiz!

1. How did Julie Bishop intervene when Belinda Neal confronted Brendan Nelson at the end of a Sydney-Canberra flight in late August?

a) Froze her with her trademark glare.

b) Stepped between them before Neal could headbutt Nelson

c) Quoted Martin Luther King without acknowledgement

d) Suggested Malcolm might have handled it better.

2. How many times did the Canberra Press Gallery play this song during Kevin Rudd’s first year in office?

a) 3

b) 4

c) 5

d) 56,789

3. Who is this man?

a) A former ALP member and head of one of Australia’s most successful trade unions.

b) Star of the shortlived 2008 Australia TV series The New Adventures of Emo Man

c) I don’t know but he’s hilarious. More please!

d) All of the above.

4. Here, Kevin Rudd is:

a) Getting a monster headache because Peter Garrett won’t shut up.

b) Reassuring George W. Bush that all Australian Prime Ministers are grovelling lickspittles.

c) Using his telepathic powers to read the minds of every world leader in the room.

d) About to remove his glasses and change from Kevin Rudd, mild-mannered Prime Minister of a middle-ranking power to G20Man, architect of a new global order.

5. What was the subject of John Murphy’s notorious complaint to House of Representatives Speaker Harry Jenkins in September?

a) A staff member had defecated on his wife’s stroganoff.

b) His stroganoff serving had melamine in it.

c) Nubile young kitchen staff had bathed in the sink where they cleaned the stroganoff.

d) The lack of opportunities in Parliament to make a d-ckhead of himself.

6. What is Kevin Rudd’s middle name?

a) Graham

b) Michael

c) Kevin

d) Yog-Sothoth

7. What is this a picture of? (17 points)

a) Mark Vaile, engaged in his new consulting role in the Middle East

b) A scene from George W. Bush’s fantasy of how Iraq would go.

c) Alby Schultz trying to recruit for another raid on the local Nationals office.

d) How seriously they take Movember in Queensland.

8. Brendan Nelson cares. At what event did he make this historic declaration? (5 points and an extra 1 point if you cared about the answer )

a) Just before his second leadership ballot

b) The 4th International “Tell Us How Much You Care” Care-a-thon Third Place Care-off

c) After making like Kevin Rudd and calling a binge drinking summit.

d) After everyone laughed at his “listening tour”

9. Beijing Austchina is (13 points):

a) a travel agency for indigent politicians

b) the front for Kevin Rudd’s Chinese Communist Party handlers

c) some mob of Chinese suits who worked out shouting up-and-coming Labor MPs free travel would be a great way to get in with the next Australian Government

d) an invention of the Sinophobic western press

10. Who suggested that the Coalition’s ranks contained a number of “friends of Dorothy” during Question Time in November? (1 point)

a) House idiot Wilson Tuckey

b) House “smooth operator” Stephen Smith

c) House macho man Warren Snowdon

d) House hottie Melissa Parke

11. On 16 September, Malcolm Turnbull defeated Brendan Nelson by what margin:

a) 45-41

b) 45-42

c) Everyone else-Nick Minchin

d) 365-173 electoral college votes

12. Which of these men wears a brown suit and is married to Carmel Tebbutt?

a) The first guy. As if the Deputy Premier of NSW would be married to that nong on the right.

b) The second guy. The first guy looks like some harmless backbencher from a rustbelt state.

c) Are you kidding? Carmel Tebbutt’s too hot for either of them.

d) Both. Morris Iemma accidentally legalised bigamy during a late-night sitting in 2007.

13. How many points were in Kevin Rudd’s early 2008 plan to fight inflation?

a) Initially 3, rising to 4.1 by the middle of the year before peaking at 5.5 just before the financial crisis.

b) Inflation? What’s that again?

c) 5, but the last couple looked like padding.

d) 4, but being a Rudd idea it had 3 sub-points under each, and a number of dash-points for each of those.

14. Malcolm Turnbull’s religious faith is:

a) Catholic

b) Jewish

c) Jedi

d) Orthodox Malcolmite

15. Besides being managers of Parliamentary business for their respective sides, and men, and politicians, and going to Sydney Uni, and anything else, what do Anthony Albanese and Joe Hockey have in common?

a) They’re both jolly decent chaps who really enjoy a good laugh.

b) They went out with the same girl at uni

c) They both support the Rabbitohs

d) They were both fans of Sydney band Kiss My Poodle’s Donkey

16. Who presented John Howard with the Irving Kristol Award in March?

a) The late Irving Kristol, via ouija board

b) The American Enterprise Institute

c) Fox Network, which insisted he was still Prime Minister

d) A number of indictable war criminals.

17. The Howard Years revealed

a) That, surprisingly, a Democrat staffer liked herbal tea.

b) That Peter Costello would always find a reason not to challenge for the leadership

c) That Peter Reith has aged really badly

d) Exactly nothing of any interest.

18. What did Resources Minister Martin Ferguson travel to Saudi Arabia for in June?

a) Get some tips on how to handle this rubbish about global warming

b) Discuss ways to lower the price of oil … as if that would ever happen

c) Learn to speak English

d) Launch Tourism Australia’s new Middle Eastern campaign “Where the bloody halal are you?”

19. What is Tony Abbott’s problem?

a) Too many scrums

b) Limelight Deprivation Syndrome

c) Acute logorrhoea

d) Think you’re pretty funny don’t you? Well, you’re not, you know.

20. Early this year Glenn Milne compared Barack Obama to Kevin Rudd and Hilary Clinton to John Howard. More recently Kevin Rudd has been compared to Tony Blair and John Howard to Margaret Thatcher. By this logic, this means Janette Howard equals?

a) Bill Clinton

b) Norma Major

c) Some monstrous, unspeakable combination of Chelsea Clinton and Mark Thatcher

d) Therese Rein.

21. In a bizarre doorstop on Budget day, whom did Peter Costello advise to “get a new prescription”?

a) Wilson Tuckey

b) Michelle Grattan

c) Pensioners, before pharmaceutical costs went up

d) The Parliamentary Liberal Party

22. Why was Senator Mary Jo Fisher running around the Senate Chamber during the last moments of this year’s sittings?

a) She was looking for some dress sense

b) She was confused about which way to vote on the infrastructure bill

c) She keeps fit by running laps of the Senate during divisions

d) Eric Abetz’s voice had driven her slowly, but surely, insane

Your ranking:

29 and above: You political tragic! You know enough to work for Crikey as a political correspondent. Care to move to Canberra? Anyone would do a better job than the arseclown currently doing it.

10-28: A solid effort, you clearly pay attention to the world of politics in a way that marks you out from 99.9% of your fellow Australians.

5-10: Average. Middling. Boringly normal. The stifling reek of mediocrity pervades your very existence. You probably have 2.4 children. I spit you out as neither hot nor cold.

0-5: Do you actually read anything at all in Crikey? Or are you just some pathetic lefty who only subscribes for the cartoons? Frankly we’re better off without readers — and I use the term very loosely — like you. Go away.

ANSWERS:

1. b
2. d
3. d
4. b
5. d
6. b
7. 17 points if you answered (a)
8. 5 points if you answered (c), an extra 1 point if you cared about the answer
9. 13 points if you answered (c)
10. d (and a further 10 points if you wish she’d swap seats with Jodie Campbell)
11. a
12. 1 point if you know who Carmel Tebbutt is
13. 0 points for any answer
14. 1 point if you answered (a) or (d)
15. c
16. 1 point if you answered (b) or (d). Also, if you like the work of the AEI, you might enjoy this
17. 49 points if you answered (d). If you’re Gerard Henderson, you only get 1 point
18. 10 points if you thought that was funny
19. 1 point for any answer
20. 0 points — it is of course a trick question. Janette Howard equals John Howard
21. 1 point if you recall who Peter Costello is
22. 0.25 of a point for answer (b)