tonys problem in uk

Bill flies above truly biblical fury
November 12, 2011

Opinion mike carlton smh

It has been a wonderful week for el momento de la
verdad, as the Spanish call it. The moment of truth.

After months of outrage, Coalition senators finally had to concede they had no hope of sinking the government's wicked carbon-tax bills. Their fury was a delight to behold. Biblical allusions were all the go.

''You will wear your betrayal of the Australian people like a crown of thorns and you will not escape their judgment!'' thundered George Brandis, the Queensland Liberal, more or less in the direction of that modern Jezebel, the Prime Minister.
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Ron Boswell, a Queensland Nat, rocketed further into loopy hyperbole. The decision by the independent MP Tony Windsor to support a carbon tax had been ''the greatest sell-out since Judas Iscariot took 30 pieces of silver,'' he fumed.

Puce and steaming, Boswell himself emitted enough greenhouse gas to require him to buy carbon credits.

Their leader, however, had quit the field. On the day of the final vote, Tony Abbott was flying to some Tory talkfest in London hosted by none other than John Winston Howard where, no doubt, he will take further advice on his historic mission to repeal every piece of Labor legislation passed in the Commonwealth since Federation.

But I wonder how he will cope there without the daily toxic tax photo opportunity. Picture some quiet London suburban high street - startled shopkeepers flee in alarm as a jug-eared figure in hard-hat and fluoro safety jacket lumbers onto their patch with that simian gait so familiar to Australian television viewers.

''Call me Tony!'' cries the apparition. '' I am here to fillet a fish, lay bricks, load bananas, or perhaps to hammer away at a small piece of metal.