A Collection Of The Year’s Greatest Political Insults And Sledges
"You are a knob."
It’s a universally accepted truth that former Prime Minister Paul Keating was an absolute boss when it came to ruthlessly sledging his political opponents.
Here he is on John Howard:
“The little desiccated coconut’s under pressure and he’s attacking anything he can get his hands on.”
And again:
I will never get to the stage of wanting to lead the nation standing in front of the mirror every morning clipping the eyebrows here and clipping the eyebrows there with Janette and the kids. It is like ‘spot the eyebrow’.
Our current crop of politicians don’t come close to Keating’s withering wit, but they are giving it a red hot go.
The latest volume of The Table, a publication put together by the clerks of Commonwealth parliaments all around the world, has collected a list of all the “unparliamentary expressions” of 2015 (sadly we’ll have to wait until next year for 2016’s greatest hits).
Unparliamentary expressions are sledges so brutal and devastating that the Speaker of the House has to step in and rule them out of order, thereby setting a precedent that they can’t be uttered again.
The Table’s collection includes insults from the Australian parliament, as well as our state parliaments, Canada, India, South Africa and the UK. Unsurprisingly the list of Australian expressions is enormous and makes up nearly half the total list.
Here are some of the best/worst from the House of Representatives:
“He is such an annoying prat”
“You are such a grub”
“They are the tools over the other side that will be bashed”
“Goose”
“You’ll be sweating ballot papers”
“The cockroach of the Australian Labor Party”
“Free trade is bullshit”
“Here is another muppet”
“I thank Beaker over there” (On the same day)
The list has also highlighted Tony Abbott’s obsession with Nazi references. Both “Holocaust of jobs” and “The Dr Goebbels of economic policy” were phrases spoken by Abbott last year when he was still Prime Minister, and both were ruled out of order.
Meanwhile the ACT has ruled “Grub”, “Grubby government” and “Grubby little leader of the Opposition” are all unparliamentary.
But the prize for rudest and most vicious parliament definitely goes to the NT. Here’s some of the highlights:
“You are a knob”
“My question is to the village idiot”
“He is not here. He is talking to Tinker Bell on his unicorn phone”
Even though Australia’s list of insults is pretty exhaustive, South Africa takes the cake when it comes to sheer offensiveness, with politicians referring to their opponents as murderers, sex pests, drug lords and even Teletubbies.
And what about the UK, the country that brought Parliamentary abuse to the rest of the world? Their list only includes two phrases: “You lot” and “Mob”.
Soft.
The worst attempted sledge award has to go to New Zealand for this one: “Go back to supporting marijuana.”
