Malcolm’s cunning plan

A seasoned gallery reporter, Mrs Necropolis Fleecedick, reveals the PM’s battle plan:

As Tony Abbott festers on the backbench, plotting and scheming with every waking breath to bring down the man who saved this government, there can be not a scintilla of doubt that Liberals did the right thing  in prevailing upon Malcolm Turnbull to overcome his reservations and apply that stupendous intelligence to the business of salvation. The wisdom of their decision is confirmed by the latest polling.

Now you might think that falling behind Labor by two points is not a good thing. If that is your perspective you have been listening to Abbott’s whispering rusted-ons. They just don’t get it, cannot wrap their embittered little minds about the subtle strategy at work here.

Malcolm Turnbull understands that Australians love an underdog, making the contrast with his predecessor even more stark. Throughout his disastrous, Credlin-infected occupancy of the PM’s office, Abbott was the very picture of futile impotence as he strove to gain a lead in the polls. And where did that get him? Malcolm is doing things his way.

A source very close to the Prime Minister explained everything last night, confiding candidly between sips of the cocoa we always enjoy before bed. By reducing expectations now, before the election is even called, Malcolm has positioned the Coalition to make greater gains later.

“Niki,” he said, because this what my confidential source calls me, “just imagine the PM as a spring — an agile spring, coiling itself into full compression before allowing all that ferocious energy to unleash itself upon the hustings.

“In order to spring high, one must first crouch,” my sage adviser observed.

Who could disagree?

“The problem is Abbott, as always, and what mischief he might be up to.”

I nodded, recalling how the universally detested former Liberal leader once bit into a raw onion, as sinister a stratagem as Canberra has ever seen. A lesser man than Malcolm would have countered immediately by chomping on a pineapple, but the embodiment of his party’s redemption was far too smart to let Abbott dictate the field of battle.

My intimate source informs me that, once the election is called, he will first have Wyatt Roy shave some black truffles. Next, while the PM enjoys them at a photo op with a nice nicoise salad, Scott Morrison will be ordered to announce a sustainable, appropriate and innovative program of low-carbon grants to set Tasmania and South Australia on the path to truffle-led recoveries. Expect Tim Flannery to play a prominent part.

Abbott will sneer, of course he will sneer. But Malcolm has his number, so none of Abbott’s scheming will gain the slightest traction. Only yesterday someone tipped Fairfax’s Peter Hartcher that Abbott has been bleaching the Great Barrier Reef with a large bottle of White King. Expect more stories like that as Malcolm shaves his poll numbers ever lower. The genius of the man!

My source chuckled as he unfastened his truss.

“Next week, we’ll be down another two points, and two more the week after. Can you imagine how high the PM will fly once he has packed the energy of 20 lost points into his spring?”

“The pieces, they’re all coming  together beautifully….

(Readers curious to learn more of Abbott’s abuse of polyps should read the Hartcher story via the link below.)

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