The most cooked morsels of 2023 politics

So we come to the end of another year of Auspol nausea, and as ever, Crikey is committed to making you earn your Christmas break by reliving all of its dumbest moments. It wasn’t quite the embarrassment of embarrassments, with the ALP favouring more of a “quiet disappointment” vibe over blaring great catastrophe. Still, there was plenty for the cooked politics gourmand to savour.

Pauline Hanson had knits

Hanson has been unable to dominate the news cycle as she once did, with the right-wing argument against an Indigenous Voice to Parliament dominated by others this year. Still, she did her best to use the lawsuit launched against her by Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi to get a bit of attention and, inevitably, as a fundraiser. One Nation has always flogged all manner of tat to fill the coffers, but it went in a less predictable direction this year, selling dayglo knitwear that Pauline herself apparently made (and models on the website) and which looks like it leaves stains more persistent than turmeric on any surface it encounters.

Pauline Hanson displaying her range of knitted wares (Image: One Nation)

Rolling out the literal pork-barrel

Proving he can be every bit as off-key as any of his conservative predecessors, Agriculture Minister Murray Watt announced a policy to combat some of the strain of the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. Was it a rent freeze? More measures to combat corporate profit-fuelled inflation? Heavens no! Watt issued a “stern warning” to the big grocery stores to make Christmas ham cheaper. Well, not more expensive. You know, for a bit.

Nevertheless, given what we have to work with, the fact that his office surely saw the possibility of “Labor supports ham-mas” references and went ahead with it anyway counts as some kind of policy bravery.

Van damned

When a politician gets caught out being faintly thirsty on Instagram and it doesn’t affect his reputation at all, you know that politician has had a shit of a year. Behold the saga of former Liberal Senator David Van; he briefly came to our notice in 2021 by being forced to deny that he had made “growling dog noises” at independent Senator Jacqui Lambie while she was addressing the Senate. 

This year, attempting to progress the narrative that it was the ALP and not the Liberals’ handling of the Brittany Higgins saga that was partisan and disrespectful (remember that whole thing?), Van became the Sam Kerr of own goals. Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe responded to his line of questions by accusing him of sexual assault. Van instantly denied it. Thorpe, having withdrawn her allegation along procedural Senate lines rather than as a backdown on its alleged substance, went into greater detail.

The Australian got some background that Van’s office had indeed been moved away from Thorpe’s following a complaint. By midday, Van had been expelled by the partyroom. He gave another denial in the Senate that afternoon. Worse was yet to come for him, with former Liberal Party senator Amanda Stoker putting out a statement that alleged Van “inappropriately touched” her by “squeezing [her] bottom twice” in November 2020 and “by its nature and by its repetition, it was not accidental”. 

The next day Dutton said he’d received a third complaint, and called on Van to resign, while The Australian ran a front page describing Van’s alleged reputation as a “groper” as an “open secret“. Van, now on the crossbench and something of a legislative kingmaker (because politics!), continues to deny any wrongdoing.

War of words

Of course, most years you could fill a piece of this sort entirely with crooked mayors and dysfunctional councils, a reliable source of truly bananas politics. Our favourite such incident was the alleged fallout of a Cumberland Council annual budget weekend planning session in February.

Councillor Paul Garrard, at some point, decided to recite Banjo Paterson’s poem “The Man from Ironbark” when he alleges Labor Councillor Mohamad Hussein told him several times to “Shut the fuck up” and “Sit the fuck down”, before allegedly seeing if Garrard and fellow Councillor Steve Christou (himself a “colourful character”) wanted to take things outside. Hussein, through his lawyer, has denied the allegations.

Honourable mentions

Labor Senator for Tasmania Helen Polley’s terrifying method for cooking eggs, Lyle Shelton proving the lies of the rainbow mafia with the Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf-like joyless marriage of two male penguins, Barnaby Joyce proving once again that politicians cannot work televisions, and the Matildas being knocked out of this year’s World Cup after a squad-wide bout of cringe-related injuries thanks to our political class.

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