SOMETIMES I wish they’d move Parliament House to, say, Longreach; those Federal pollies really are giving us a bad name. And this week they were worse than ever.

Scott Morrison in his new sheep’s clothing as Social Services Minister proposed pension cuts that would have helped the Budget bottom line by $2.4 billion. The Labor Party opposed them, even though the most needy would have actually received an increase. But when Morrison promised the Greens’ new leader, Richard Di Natale, that the government would talk about possible changes to superannuation tax, he supported them… even when PM Tony Abbott ruled out any actual changes!

Regular readers will recall that when Mr Di Natale took over from Christine Milne we feared he might take the Meg Lees route and compromise with the Coalition as she did on the GST, thus triggering the eventual suicide of the Australian Democrats. Not looking good, Richard.

THE citizenship debate was even worse. In a week celebrating the rule of law on the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, Abbott rode roughshod over his own Cabinet to permit a minister to strip the citizenship from an Australian without any judicial proceeding.

And to top it off he “verballed” the eminent lawyer and former national security watchdog, Bret Walker SC for suggesting that he’d actually supported the idea and later changed his mind.

Mr Walker was outraged: “His position is indefensible and he should apologise,” he said. “Dual nationals should not be stripped of their citizenship without a criminal trial and conviction.”

AND there’s more. Relations with Indonesia sank to new depths with the Vice President Josef Kalla accusing Australia of “bribery” in paying people smugglers to turn back the boats.

Labor leader Bill Shorten, whose personal polling has reached new depths, led the charge in Parliament but then retreated when it was suggested that Labor, too, had spread the cash around – via ASIS – when it was in government. More importantly perhaps, the polls indicated he was on a political loser.

In fact, with former Senator Mark Arbib’s reported comments in the ABC’s wonderful “Killing Season” that Shorten “couldn’t be trusted”, and new revelations about his dealings when AWU leader, Shorten’s leadership looks ever more likely to be, well, shortened.

BY contrast, our own little patch of politics in Canberra is a model of gentility. Sure, there are problems. Administration of the jail is a disaster, and the ACT Ambulance Service wrote off debts of $1.6 million. But our power bills are coming down by an average $80 a year. Minister Joy Burch was cleared of influence-peddling. And most welcome was Chief Minister Andrew Barr’s strong hint that our taxi service is in line for deregulation. The catalyst was Uber and it’s good to see Mr Barr is facing the reality of a changing world.

Now if only he’d appreciate that the future of car travel means that expensive light rail systems might themselves become relics of a bygone age before they’re even paid off!

THEN, of course, came that wonderful drop of rain. No wonder the Feds like coming here and despoiling our beautiful city with their rants and ravings. It hasn’t rained in Longreach for three years!

robert@robertmacklin.com