With defeat looking imminent, staffers are jumping the Howard ship at a great rate. Hillary Bray reports on this and many other juicy political morsels.

Why would you hang round? The Government is going down – and the treatment meted out to John “The Cowardly Lion” Anderson’s most senior advisers has shown that loyalty isn’t rewarded.

Only the most faithful – and least employable – are staying around. God only knows what the calibre of the recruits they find to fill the six months between now and the inevitable will be like.

PS Anyone like to offer a Hillary a job? The Age now has its own “Hillary lite” column, House on the Hill. Why not go for the real thing?

Mob psychology

The Gallery is in full lynch mob mode as they try to run the Rodent out and deconstruct the recession we don’t yet have.

Still, if Labor doesn’t get the huge swing expected in Ryan, it will be fascinating to see if they then turn on the Windbag from the West.

Full support

Just in case Peter Costello has any ideas – and is going to let his acolytes give briefs like the one that appeared in Glenn “The Black Dwarf” Milne’s column last Monday – the PM’s office has given him both barrels.

Jennifer Hewitt gave the Treasurer a well briefed blast in Saturday’s Sydney Yawning Herald, then he copped a thorough going-over from Brendan Nicholson in the Sunday Age: “Federal backbenchers believe the Coalition will be defeated in next week’s by-election in the federal seat of Ryan – seen as a crucial test of the government’s standing – and they are blaming federal Treasurer Peter Costello. ‘Fairly or not, Peter is seen as the problem rather than as a solution,’ one told The Sunday Age. ‘Whatever happens in Ryan, John Howard is safe.’ ”

Funny. Hillary could have sworn that the bloke standing next to Meg Lees after THAT deal was done was the Prime Miniature.

Hope springs eternal

All is not lost for the Howard Government, according to some brave souls. The Windbag from the West is yet to articulate anything that resembles policy and the Budget is still two months away.

These optimists say things will calm down and that the Government still has time to reshape the Budget into a reassuring and popular package, win back support then go to the polls in August.

Holding the line

Some fascinating figures drifted out of the ABS this week, suggesting the GST has raised almost $2 billion more than reported in the Commonwealth Government Monthly Financial Statement for December 2000.

At the same time one of the Government’s favourite economists, Chris Murphy of Econtech, director said the sharp collapse in economic activity justified a round of tax cuts and the bringing forward of indirect tax reductions originally scheduled for later this year.

If the ABS figures are right, there’s room for the PM to move. Tax cuts would show that there’s still some space for principal and policy – rather than populist porkbarrelling.

Battling it out

At the Australian Hotels Association dinner in Parliament House a guest was surprised to walk into the gents and find Howard and Beazley side by side at the trough – probably trying to find out who the better man really is.

Spot the difference

Last week the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions ruled-out any change to its original decision not to make former Queensland senator, Mal Colston, proceed to stand trial on travel-fraud charges.

The DPP says the new medical evidence shows Dr Colston’s condition has deteriorated to the point where he requires constant medical attention and frequent trips to hospital.

This compares with Colston’s previous condition – where he just required frequent trips.

Battle stress

Hillary receives an e-mail from a Sydney reader, reporting the siting of a “grim faced” Natasha Stott-Despoja purposefully striding up Oxford Street with better half, Hugh Riminton.

“It’s very good to see that the leadership battle isn’t preventing Natasha from enjoying weekend (ed amendment: romance) in Sydney,” our correspondent reports, “but clearly they aren’t doing anything in the way of stress relief”.

Miaow!

Decline and fall

More interesting facts and figures about the decline of the Democrats has fallen off the back of a solar powered bicycle and come Hillary’s way.

A report on the state of the Queensland divisions says the local Dems had 560 members on the books at the end of the year. Of these, 170 were lapsed – more than three months late with membership fees and unable to vote. It compares this with the state of things at the time of Chezza’s departure – 650 fully financial members.

The author states that their own branch numbers have halved with 30 per cent of the remaining members currently lapsed. They go on to say that they are only aware of three membership enquiries since the GST deal – and a grand total of two new members.

PS After all the talk last week of pert breasts and Arthur Chesty-Bond’s secret longings, Hillary was delighted to receive the following message: “Maybe we are seeing a party that is way beyond Don Chipp’s vision – The Erotocrats: Keeping the Bastards Horny”.

ction analysis

The Democrats aren’t the only party suffering in Queensland. Hillary was very amused to receive this analysis of the recent election outcome.

Some facts about the Qld Parliamentary Liberal Party:

-The Parliamentary Liberal Party is well balanced, with MPs representing all regions in the South East corner of the state: 33.33 per cent is from the Sunshine Coast, 33.33 per cent is from the Gold Coast and 33.33 per cent is from Brisbane

The Parliamentary Liberal Party is highly inclusive – 33.33 per cent of it is female.

All members of the Parliamentary Liberal Party have leadership experience.

Clearly the Queensland Libs are extremely well placed.

PS Premier Beattie has given every Queensland State MP an extra electorate officer. Given all the Federal marginal seats in Queensland, 66 extra Labor apparatchiks are bound to be handy. And those three extra Liberal staffers will have to toil hard.

Saving Ryan

Bronwyn Bishop visited two nursing homes in Ryan on the weekend. As one wit observed, the Liberal campaign is either very desperate or very brave.

Ministers are turning out for the campaign in force. Peter Costello has visited, and Ho Chi Minchin is doing a fundraising dinner in Ryan on Monday night. Phil Ruddock was to do a multi-cultural fundraising dinner to be organised by whinging Pom Michael Johnston, but was cancelled due to lack of numbers. If he’d told them it was a preselection, they would have turned out in their hundreds.

PS Liberal deputy director Burston’s shaky credibility is being sorely tested by his telling the local Liberals that internal polling says its neck and neck.

Sad departure

Many tears have been shed over the de-selection of the brilliant and incisive Member for Wentworth, Andrew Thomson. His pig-shooting expedition the weekend before did nothing to hone his killer instinct. New candidate, Peter “The Drover’s Dog” King, is expected to have a very brief career as the Libs wait for someone half decent to put up their hand.

A preselector has sent these interesting observations on the afternoon to Hillary:

“Andrew Thomson was bizarre to the end. In the middle of an answer to the entire preselection panel he decided completely unprompted to say that if he lost he would not be causing a by election or not helping to elect a liberal. It was virtually saying go and vote against me I have no particular objection. And so everyone did in massive numbers.

“At the roundtable interviews Peter King on the question of abortion said that he favoured the sanctity of life, and apparently at the Party after the preselection he went to sleep on the couch.

“The only other matter of simple interest is the time that this preselection format is taking in NSW. With just three candidates the whole preselection took over five hours. In less than a fifth of this time the NSW Labor Party had preselected seven federal seats. The NSW Liberal Party is now so focussed inward that it has neither the time nor money to even function much less fight election campaigns. The whole reform process is now widely disregarded and Staley is seen as both lazy and ineffective.

“On the day the most ignored person of all was the self described factional warrior Rhondda Vanzella – Female Vice President and glorified diary keeper for Brendan Nelson. Although everyone knows she spends her entire time ringing Liberal Party members from his office when she needs something, Mother, as she prefers to be called, has cut just one too many deals for everyone concerned, and now no one wants to talk to her. On Sunday a group of people simple vanished as they saw her approach.

“The only other amusing thing was Bill Heffernan having to say what a great outcome it was for everyone concerned, especially given that he had been touring the room saying that this was not one the PM wanted.”

PS There are two other curious reports out of New South Wales this week. Informed sources say the local Libs forgot to pay their staff last week – and that the hubby of recently re-selected Senator Helen Coonan “The Barbarian”, Andrew Rogers, could be in for rapid promotion if Murray Gleeson gets the GG’s job.

Fan club

We may need to give Buffy’s chief of staff, Vicki Thompson, a free subscription for her promotional efforts.

As the pall of paranoia around the scandal-struck administration darkens, Miss Vicki has been issuing warning after warning like “anyone found leaking to Crikey will be finished”.

Informed and moderate opinion

Say it isn’t so! The Liberal Party’s book-burning faction, the Liberal Students Federation, isn’t really lining up Stan Zemanek as a guest speaker at the annual conference in Sydney in July.

Country style

Uptown Girl Sophie Panopolous seems to have abandoned her “broad church” ways so as not to shock the locals in her prospective seat of Indi, letting lose at the Mardi Gras on Lateline, claiming it was “tasteless and tacky”.

Meanwhile, the Uptown Girl has developed an interesting campaign strategy. Retiring member Lou Lieberman invites people to events, then doesn’t turn up and the Uptown Girl swans in instead.

At one of these recent functions, she demanded a bemused local government official the bemused shire tell her where all the councillors were. When told there were none present, she demanded an introduction then asked what he’d arranged for morning tea. Oddly enough, up till then he had thought he was the guest.

Globetrotter

While no opprobrium ever attaches itself to PBL subsidiary Saint Steve, his Treasurer, John Brumby, is not so lucky.

The hapless Victorian Libs are accusing him of dodging FOI requests and hiding travel costs – and make the rather amusing allegation that “in the 1990s, when Mr Brumby worked for former federal Minister, Alan Griffiths, they spent $350,000 on overseas travel”.

That could have bailed out the sandwich shop several times over.

Media botch

Watch Littlemore? Me neither.

Hillary Bray can be contacted at hillarybray@hotmail.com

ends

Now, let’s take a look an an earlier piece on the Democrats by Hillary.

Dem leaders and old bags

Once, at a vulnerable age, Hillary was severely traumatised while walking down Collins Street.

There, amongst all the well groomed suits was a bizarrely clad man with a face that appeared to be collapsing in on itself while his hair was desperate to escape. Yes, it was Don Chipp, the then leader of the Australian Democrats. Hillary hasn’t been able to cope with the party ever since.

Throughout their history, the Dems have gone for the glamour – Chipp, Janine Haines, Jeanette Powell, Ol’ Blinky Bill and Mystic Meg. Not. So why do they need to start now?

The Dems are a party of beards, Birkenstocks and honest, earthy colours. They know all about the fashion conspiracy – and that you only need to glance at a lipstick to see how it plays a wish fulfillment proxy role in a phallocentric plot.

Democrats like each other the way they are. Remember the whole Sid and Jeanette thing? What could be more natural than that?

Hillary actually suspects some secret Nightporter-like fantasies were played out there with Sid’s old Hitler Youth uniform. But just think about that union. Actually, don’t think about it – it’s enough to put you off sex. What Hillary meant to say was draw the logical conclusion from that union – Democrats don’t worry about looks.

So why all the concern now? Why do they suddenly need a pin up girl as their leader?

Yesterday, Mystic Meg told Radio 2GB that some Democrats claimed her age her age was an issue. “We want someone younger, we want someone who is attractive and that is the way it has been put to me,” she said.

The Democrat Deputy Leader in South Australia, Sandra Kanck, has warned that aging male Democrats “feeding sexual fantasies” are contributing to the party’s leadership crisis.

Kanck told the Adelaide Advertiser that women over 50 were resented in Australia because their “breasts are no longer pert”. She said the issue was not limited to the Democrats but also affected the workplace at large.

“When women are applying for jobs if you show your legs you’ve got a better chance of getting a job,” Kanck said.

Kanck went one further on the ABC, saying the debate about Senator Lees’ age reflected ongoing discrimination against mature women. “Women over 50, we are basically told that we ought to, I guess, don a habit and go hide in our homes. There’s a resentment from society that we give way to gravity. Our mouths drop and we get crow’s feet around our eyes. There’s a real resentment about it.

“Of course she (Senator Stott Despoja) is capitalising on her good looks, why wouldn’t she?

“She is incredibly attractive, whereas Meg is on the back foot all the time because there’s none of the heavy make-up.”

Kanck has accused some male Democrats of using an internet chat site (just what sort of internet chat site, by the way?) to call for a younger, fresher face. “It’s a small group and they basically feed on themselves,” she says, but a particular target of Kanck’s bile has been New South Wales Democrat, Arthur Chesterfield-Sofa.

According to the SMH, Kanck has written a remarkable letter to the Legislative Councilor claiming “twisted people”, hell-bent on installing Senator Stott Despoja would have destabilised whoever was leader.

“Comments you have made, in house, over the past two years, lead me to conclude that you subscribe to the views of these spoilers in the party. Even if you do not, your backing of the leadership spill and support for Natasha now place you fairly and squarely in the camp of those who have consistently pursued destabilisation of the party. Meg did not deserve the knife you stuck in her back, Arthur.

“One journalist put it to me very crudely ‘Isn’t this about plain versus pretty?’ I do not regard Meg as plain, but she employs none of the artifices. She doesn’t attempt to disguise her age, she dresses sensibly, she hasn’t tailored her image to suit the fashion consultants.”

What? Does Arthur Chesterfield-Sofa get his rocks off on young lasses? If so, why did the Sydney Dem’s bright young hope end up in Joe Tripodi’s office? Just what is going on here?

Chesterfield-Sofa says the party has to face “political forces and perceptions”. So what have age and looks got to do with either of them?

Hillary can only draw one conclusion. The Australian Democrats are clearly sex-obsessed – and yet these are the people we hope will keep a leash on the excesses of the other parties.

(Editor’s note: Annabel Crabb reports in The Age this morning that they were all queueing up to be on the Democrats Mardi Gras float. You had Natasha, Aden and his fellow deputy aspirant Senator Bartlett all boogying up Oxford St on Saturday night. The only one missing was the only openly gay Democrat Senator, Brian Greig.)

Still, readers will be relieved to learn that Natasha has managed to still play the victim in all of this, saying “the only references to age that I’m aware of are people who use my age against me.”

Funny about that. All the other 31 year olds Hillary knows – and especially the ones with ambition – are able to look after themselves.