The Short and Excruciatingly Embarrassing Reign of Captain Abbott

by Andrew P Street

Overview

People have the right to be bigots. I'm a fixed Team Australia, Shirtfronting, Choppergate Stop the boats, Coal is good for humanity, No cuts to health or the ABC, Sir Prince Philip Flags. It's all the fault of a febrile media. In August 2013, Australia welcomed Tony Abbott as its new prime minister. This promised to be a marriage between responsible government and a nation tired of the endless drama of the Gillard-Rudd years. But then…well… Fairfax columnist Andrew P Street details the litany of gaffes, goofs and questionable explains calls that characterised the subsequent reign of the Abbott government, following the trail from bold premises to questionable realities unlikely recoveries to inexplicable own goals, and Malcolm Tunibull's assurances of support to the day he pushed the Captain off his bike once and for all. And all this comes with a colourful cast of supporting characters and dangerous loons that only a nation unfamiliar with the concept of below-the-line voting could elect. Here is a unique take on a politics Australian style. If Game of Thrones was a deeply irreverent book about politics, then the TV series would probably not rate nearly as well. It would, however, look something like this.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781760290542
Publisher:	Allen & Unwin
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction Australia, Stop Hitting Yourself 1

1 The Gathering Storm 9

2 Meet the Motley Crew 29

3 Mandate, Mandate, Mandate! 43

4 The Right to Be a Bigot 53

5 For Those Who've Come Across the Seas 69

6 Classified On-Water Matters 79

7 Putting the Coal into Coalition 91

8 No Cuts to Health 107

9 Not Your Average Jo(k)e 121

10 Meet the New Senate! 137

11 Someone's Getting a Shirtfrontin' 151

12 We All Live in a Competitively Evaluated Submarine 163

13 The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Spill Motion 177

14 Good Government Starts Today 187

15 I'm a Fixer 207

16 Who's Afraid of Human Rights ? 223

17 The Hunt for Team Australia 237

18 Everywhere with Helicopter 247

19 Whither Labor? 257

20 Abandon Ship! 267

Epilogue Is This the Best We Can Do? 281

Acknowledgment! Or Who's to Blame for this Book 291