And when we say ‘proof’ we’re applying what’s now known in the media industry as the ‘Fairfax-Paul Sheehan standard’.
Behold, the incontrovertible evidence that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is definitely not planning an early election, nor even a double dissolution.
First, the background. In November last year, Turnbull told media: “We will be going to an election next year. I’m expecting it to be about this time, well perhaps November is getting a bit late, I would say around September, October next year is when you should expect the next election to be.”
Since then, speculation has been rife that Turnbull will sneak off to an early double dissolution election, after Greens leader Richard Di Natale recently got played off a break, and signed up to a pile of electoral reforms that will all but guarantee the annihilation of his political party.
But breathe easy Greens lovers… Turnbull is clearly planning to go full term.
Last night, news emerged out of Canberra that climate change denying homophobe and Islamophobe, Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi will be jetting off to the United Nations later this year.
His mission? To ‘help out with stuff’… within an organisation he has long decried as “unelected and unaccountable”.
The posting will last three months, and commences from… you guessed it, September 2016.
As we all know, Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t lie. So on that basis, he’s clearly planning to have Bernardi safely out of country during the federal election campaign, thereby reducing the chance that Australian voters will realize his ‘moderate Turnbull government’ is in fact populated by the religious zealots.
The cutest part about this whole story is they’ve let Cory believe he actually “won” the job in an internal party vote.
Reports the ABC: “Senator Bernardi has told the ABC he put himself forward for the short-term posting and won the ballot run by his fellow Liberal senators.”
Sure thing Cory, you ‘won’ the ‘vote’.
More reading on this crucially important issue is available over at The Shovel, in what is believed to be their first and only attempt at serious political reporting: ‘Who Is Going To Make Sure We Don’t Have Sex With Donkeys While Cory Bernardi Is On Secondment To The UN?’