The Marmalade Files (19 page)

The bank of television screens in the Prime Minister's press office was blasting out a nonstop barrage of Bailey Mania – in the long winter break it was the only political story filling the void. Brendan Ryan and George Papadakis, two of the most powerful men in the country, stood impotent, shaking their heads in awe at the power of a political zombie who was tearing the heart out of their government. And at the ability of the media to keep talking about the same story for weeks.

Transfixed, they watched as a small demonstration outside John James Hospital was beamed on each of the four TV screens. A beautiful young girl in a wheelchair, wearing a
GetSet!
pullover, was demanding that Catriona Bailey be allowed to continue in her job.

‘My name's Lydia Ainsworth and I know what it's like to have people discriminate against you because you are differently abled,' she said. ‘I think the Toohey Government now has a
great opportunity to show leadership. Catriona Bailey has clearly proven she is still capable and she can communicate. She should be allowed to stay on as Foreign Minister.'

‘Won't that pose a few fairly significant practical difficulties?' asked an ABC journalist. ‘I mean, she can't leave hospital. Which means she can't attend Parliament or Cabinet and can't travel.'

‘That's old-think,' snapped Ainsworth. ‘That's can't do. Technology is the great leveller. Cate can communicate. The world can come to her. She can be a symbol for all the differently abled: we can all aspire to the dignity of work, if we are only allowed to. And if Toohey won't let that happen then it is a second betrayal. A greater betrayal than when he backstabbed her so he could become Prime Minister. He would be betraying all of us as well.'

‘Sweet Mother of Jesus take me now,' muttered Ryan. He turned to Papadakis but he was interrupted by an explosion of expletives from the next office.

‘Fucking flaming bull's tits and rat's cocks!' The Prime Minister stormed though the door, incoherent with rage. ‘Did you see that shit! If I sack her now it'll be like clubbing a one-flippered harp seal cub to death.'

‘Or boiling a three-legged baby panda in tar,' Ryan offered.

‘You're not helping!' roared Toohey. ‘You two are supposed to be the geniuses – what do I do?'

Both Ryan and Papadakis were, for once, lost for words. The void was filled by the voice of
GetSet!
's Jamie Santow, who had
stepped up to the ABC microphone, exuding his all-too-familiar moral superiority.

‘I think there is little left to say after those stirring words from Lydia,' he said, then continued for another twenty minutes.

‘The gauntlet has been cast. Will Martin Toohey take up the challenge?'

‘I fucking hate that opportunistic little prick.' Toohey was seething.

‘Maybe we're looking at it the wrong way,' Papadakis said.

‘There's another way of looking at this other than it being one of the largest shit sandwiches in Australian political history?' Toohey said.

‘I'm with the PM,' Ryan shrugged. ‘Except it isn't just a shit sandwich, it's a whole bain-marie full of turds.'

‘We've been preparing for a by-election we probably can't win,' Papadakis said. ‘If we lose it, we lose government. But if, out of the vast generosity of our spirit, we keep Bailey, then the weight is back on the Coalition. They have to offer her a pair and we keep our majority in Parliament. Imagine the outcry if they took advantage of Bailey's stroke to try and take control of the numbers in the House.'

‘What if they say the country is ungovernable and they're doing it in the national interest?' Ryan said.

‘Scott is a small-l liberal. She wouldn't do it. It would make her look like a monster and she's already got an image problem. It would kill her with her socially aware support base.'

‘But what does it buy us?' Toohey seemed to have calmed down. ‘We've already been compromised at every turn. This
minority government is killing us. Everyone wins but us. All we get is three years of taking it up the arse followed by an eternity in Opposition. Why should we try and hold on?'

‘It buys us time. We survive,' Papadakis said. ‘Something will change.'

‘It better,' said Ryan.

It held the same appeal as eating one's greens, attending Mass or getting the cane on a winter morning. Once a week, Martin Toohey was obliged to sit down with Randal Wade, all thanks to the accord he'd signed to keep his government afloat.

But it had quickly become the mark on his weekly calendar that he dreaded – the ordeal of having to endure lengthy sermons from a pretentious twat with a Messiah complex.

The PM believed that Wade and other moralising hypocrites had arrived in an era tailor-made for their brand of fast-food activism. Elizabeth Scott had been right; the demise of Christianity in the twentieth century meant the West was adrift. With no agreed set of values, it now ricocheted from one daft idea to the next, driven by the winds of emotion. Today, the only measure of what was good was what felt good.

The profound irony was that the Greens despised Christianity yet their brand of politics mimicked religion: their followers were
the New Puritans, on a relentless quest to rid the West of its many vices. And, stripped to its core, their creed, like the Puritans' of old, was deeply misanthropic. In the end the Greens believed people were a pestilence on the face of the earth.

And, despite all their posturing as champions of the oppressed, the Greens represented the richest and whitest people in Australia. They hated everything about the working class: their jobs, cars, houses, choice of food, sports; their drinking, smoking and gambling. So the Greens determined to legislate these vices away, or make them really expensive.

Without the burden of having to run a country Wade could take the moral high ground in every argument. And he paraded his virtue on the platforms of the public broadcaster, particularly ABC local radio.

The PM was in the middle of writing himself a memo to ‘call Mark Scott and threaten to cut ABC funding … again' when George Papadakis knocked.

‘Mr Wade is here,' Papadakis said, with that cheese-eating grin he wore when he knew he'd spend the next thirty minutes watching his old friend being tortured.

‘Martin!' Wade flounced across the room with his hand extended. ‘I'm sure you look forward to our chats as much as I do. They are always so fruitful.'

‘Sure,' Toohey said. ‘Sit. What's on your mind?'

‘Well, I don't need to tell you how upset the community is about the decision to restart live cattle exports, Martin. I have never seen so many emails.'

‘I agree a lot of people are upset,' Toohey said, emotionless. ‘But emails are no measure of how the community feels.'

‘I don't believe what we saw in those Indonesian slaughterhouses was at all complex. It was clearly animal cruelty, and you obviously agreed because you shut the industry down. And I supported that.'

‘We overreacted,' Toohey shot back. ‘Our advice was to move slowly, to shut some abattoirs, not the lot. But, driven by you, and our own Left, we made a mistake … again.'

‘And saved many animals from being treated cruelly, Martin. Your first call was right. Those cattle have feelings and desires. What really is the difference between them and us?'

‘The fact that I can understand how stupid the statement you just made is, and a cow can't.'

Papadakis shifted in his seat, just enough for Toohey to recognise that his friend was sending him a ‘calm down' message.

Wade was taken aback by a tone he had never heard from Toohey before and he dialled up his own passion. ‘Some of us believe you restarted something as evil as the slave trade,' he said.

Toohey wrestled with his temper. ‘Only someone who believes human and animal life are equivalent could say that. And to be consistent you would then have to demand an end to all slaughter of animals for food everywhere. So you want me to ban the eating of all meat, Randal?'

‘Of course not. Don't be absurd.'

‘I'm not being absurd. But, mark my words, once we close the door on live exports then the militant vegetarians behind that
campaign will turn their attention to the domestic meat market. How's the new vegan regime going by the way?'

‘Never felt better, you should try it. In time, I believe many more people will discover the benefits of not eating meat. And, no matter what your excuses, I am reintroducing my bill to ban live exports and I expect you to support it.'

‘I won't be doing that. We've had this discussion; the matter is settled.' Toohey glanced at Papadakis. His expression did not change but his chief of staff got the message. Papadakis had often said that the Greens were never satisfied with compromise and always returned to the well for more.

‘Well, perhaps you should reconsider,' Wade said. ‘I know you have a big agenda when Parliament resumes. I know you need to deliver some big reforms to show you can govern. I'm sure you wouldn't want to see any of that jeopardised.'

‘Are you threatening me, Randal?'

‘Of course not. I'm just saying that this is a core issue for us and we want it fixed.'

‘It wasn't even on your radar until the ABC covered it.'

‘We are not kidding about this, Martin. This is deadly serious.'

Toohey locked Wade in his gaze and willed him dead. He thought of several bitter responses but, out of the corner of his eye, he could see Papadakis silently urging him to keep his cool. He took a deep breath.

‘Too bad. We've already done this. You put up your bill and got to parade your concern. We opposed it and you had the pleasure of attacking us as heartless animal torturers. Go ahead.
Put your bill up again, but, mate, I am telling you now, we will never support it.'

‘Then I will have to reconsider some of the other conversations we have had. My base is very angry about this. And I'm personally disappointed, Martin; I thought you'd see reason.'

There was a long pause as Wade left the room and closed the door. Papadakis broke the silence. ‘Not exactly the way I'd hoped to end the week,' he said.

Toohey was in no mood for banter. He drummed his fingers on his notepad for a small eternity as he struggled to regain his composure.

It was time to fight back.

‘George,' Toohey sighed, ‘I have tried, God knows, to hold this circus together. But that's it. I'm done being the only one eating shit.' He picked up his mobile, scrolled through some names and dialled a man who made his skin crawl.

‘Sam, it's Martin. I need your help.'

This was the moment of truth, a slug-'em-out showdown between two Liberal heavyweights, the female equivalent of Ali versus Foreman. And just like the rumble in the jungle, only one of them would triumph.

Emily Brooks and Elizabeth Scott sat a metre apart in a corner of the Opposition leader's office, a plunger of coffee and a tray of biscuits untouched between them. They were hardly friends at the best of times, but this afternoon, in an empty Parliament, the hatred was electric.

‘I think you will agree it's time for a change of tactics, Liz.' Brooks found it difficult to maintain a façade of respect when she spoke with her leader. She despised Scott's soft-Left world view and saw it as a cancer on the party. (The only thing she hated more than Scott was the Welcome to Country. That politically correct nod to indigenous history that Catriona Bailey had foisted on Parliament.)

‘How so?' Scott, typically, disagreed with Brooks. ‘We went within one seat of winning an election against a first-term government. That's the first time that has happened in eighty years. Now the government is in disarray and we are well-placed.'

‘True, but that was all their doing, not yours, Liz. Labor committed the greatest act of self-harm since Federation in killing a Prime Minister six weeks before the poll. And they still won. They formed government. Don't forget that. And don't forget that, since then, you have managed what I thought was impossible. Your approval rating is worse than that joke of a PM's. We should be untouchable, but we aren't.'

The blood rose in Scott's face. She had a quick temper and Brooks could see she had to fight to keep her emotions in check.

‘I think we both know how Jon Robbie came by his story, Emily. Scoops are usually delivered in manila folders; you clearly prefer a box.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about. And isn't your highly offensive accusation missing the point? You made a play against the Prime Minister that fell apart in three days. The leak wasn't the problem, wherever it came from.'

‘Get to the point.'

‘You're the problem – you. Your foolish attempt to try and blast out Toohey shattered your credibility. It called your political judgement into question, again. It reinforced all the hesitations that the electorate has about you. I don't know if you can recover.'

‘Are you threatening me? Is this a challenge?'

‘No, it's a warning. This is your last chance. I could get
the numbers tomorrow to spill your position; it's not as if our colleagues are that attached to you.'

Scott eyed Brooks carefully. ‘What do you want?'

‘I want you to refuse a pair for Catriona Bailey when Parliament returns.'

‘You want me to deny a pair to a woman on life support?'

‘Yes.'

‘It's indecent. I can't do it. And I won't.'

‘Do it, or I'll find someone who will.'

‘I'll be murdered in the media. It's well known that I have a godchild with cerebral palsy. And I'm the first female leader of the Opposition. You know that I've made a stand to try and make politics more family friendly.'

‘That's your problem.' Brooks stood up. ‘I'll show myself out.'

 

That night Jonathan Robbie ran an ‘exclusive' which foreshadowed plans for the Coalition to adopt an extreme position on pairs, which would include denying one to the now wildly popular, bedridden Foreign Minister. The story included the classic non-denial: ‘A spokesman for the Opposition leader declined to comment.'

Within the hour Bailey had tweeted: ‘Scott reaches a new low. This is the politics of the gutter and a direct attack on the disabled.'

Online polling ran at 90 per cent against the plan and by morning a
GetSet!
picket had formed outside Scott's electoral office.

The Liberal leader was trapped, faced with a diabolical choice – conscience or career.