Costello reaches out to the downtrodden …

[Drawing by Tony King, 1969]

… The electorate merely retches.

Mr Costello said that in the election campaign he would talk about what Australia needs for its future, in particular drawing the marginalised into mainstream society.

” Maybe they have been marginalised with health problems, maybe they have been marginalised by the welfare system, maybe they have been marginalised by an education system which has failed them,” he said.

“Now that we have a strong economy and we have paid off Labor debt and balanced our budgets, now we can use our economic strength to reach out to these people and bring them into the mainstream.

He added,

” Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”

A recent Newspoll has shown that, at these words, electors all over Australia, who had been considering voting Labor, fell to their knees like audience plants in a Benny Hinn service, or a Hillsong meeting, praying:

” Almighty Sweetie Dollar, new Father of our nation, Maker of all things, Judge of all men; We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, By thought, word, and deed, Against Thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly Thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent, And are heartily sorry for these our misdoings: The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; The burden of them is intolerable. Have mercy upon us, Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; Forgive us all that is past; And grant that we may ever hereafter Serve and please Thee In newness of life, To the honour and glory of Thy Name; Through the Divine Grace of the Holy Trinity – the Rodent, the Don and the Ming. Amen.

Unrepentant sinners assert that Costello has been the Treasurer of a morally corrupt government which has methodically vandalised individual and legal freedoms and rights, a government which has never told the truth when a lie would do, a government which has, as a matter of policy – which Costello has wholeheartedly and enthusiastically promoted – systematically and systemically marginalised large sections of the society which it has then vilified and punished for their marginalisation.

Uncharitably, these sinners point out that he has had almost twelve years to act on his professed compassionate impulses. And he has done nothing. They say that he has the moral backbone of a leech. Even if he had wanted to stand up against the viciousness of the outgoing Prime Minister he never had the guts to do so, showing more compassion for his own ambition to sit in the big seat.

The unforgiven suggest that his awkward, nauseating, muculent Uriah Heep impression, the soft-voiced caring and concern of the radio interview, contrasts starkly with his more characteristically spiteful, arrogant performance in Parliament today when he proudly paraded himself as the supercilious, bullying, narcissistic misanthrope that he truly is.

(May the Almighty Sweetie Dollar have mercy upon them. R’amen)