blamebrampton | Utegate, part III

It's still going!

(It being Australia's version of a political crisis, see the last few days of entries for details if you've missed it)

The Federal police have found the infamous email at the home of Godwin Grech and declared it to be a fraud. It seems to have been written within Treasury, sent to Mr Grech at home, and then deleted from the Treasury servers. Mr Grech is now helping the police with their inquiries.

In response, the Prime Minister has called on the Leader of the Opposition to resign.

The Opposition has said that while that email may be a fraud, the Treasurer really and truly did send an email to Godwin Grech asking that he assist John Grant, the owner of the ute that was loaned to the Prime Minister for campaigning.

Accordingly, the Leader of the Opposition has demanded the Treasurer resign.

The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, says: 'Actually, I haven't misled parliament at all, I said that Grant had received no special treatment. There were many members of my constituency who rang and emailed me asking for financial assistance, all of whom I referred to Treasury in the same way as Mr Grant.'

You will not be surprised to hear that he has called for the Leader of the Opposition to resign.

The Ruddbot has just outlined the whole saga on The 7.30 Report, which is one of the leading television news programmes. He did it in point form. Truly, the man is Harry Potter meets Cyberdyne meets a particularly dull volume of Hansard ... Allow me to illustrate:

Now The Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, is saying that the infamous email was clearly concocted by someone in the Treasury, ergo, it was all Wayne Swan! Poor Malcolm, he is looking very tired. He's taken to waving his hands at the camera and using the journalist's first name, saying 'As you know ...' and 'Clearly ...' while his eyes scream a deep and personal desire for the entire press gallery and Australian Labor Party to die by fire.

OH! Now he has his glasses on and is reading from notes! He is impersonating the Ruddbot! Alas, Malcolm lacks the deep level of tediousness that the Ruddbot can produce at will thus making all Australians agree with him on any topic in the desperate hope that it will stop him talking.

Kerry O'Brien, the strangely sexy presenter of The 7.30 Report has just asked if it is not possible that Mr Martine (the senior Treasury official who tried to manage the questioning) was trying desperately to protect Mr Grech (the other senior treasury official who brought up the alleged email in the first place) in the Senate Hearings on Friday. Yes, Kerry, I think it is!

Malcolm has just finished up the interview saying 'We are not responsible for emails concocted in the Treasury, Mr Swan is!' And you just know he was thinking 'And he should resign!'

Yes, my friends outside of Godzone, this is the reality of the cut and thrust of Australian politics. Not for us the heady worlds of vote stealing, fictitious WMDs, large-scale expenses rorts and other such world-class scandals.

Still, it could be worse. If the farming lobby were not desperately trying to get a crop in after the first rains in more than 10 years, we could have been looking at Sheepdipgate ...