By Situation Theatre 22/09/2015
It was all hustle and bustle in the basement of the Labor Party Sussex St headquarters over the weekend. For most of Saturday and Sunday Bill Shorten could be found cursing like a sailor as he stumbled over boxes in a desperate search for policies he was sure were stored down there at some point.
Unfortunately for Shorten, Kevin Rudd was hiding behind boxes of Kevin07 t-shirts and has leaked the ensuing conversation between the opposition leader and his Chief of Staff Cameron Milner:
Shorten: “shit, fuck, shit. Where the fuck are our policies?”
Milner: “you mean the ‘Not Tony Abbott’ bumper stickers?”
Shorten: “No!”
Milner: “Well we’ve still got a few boxes of Phony Tony key rings, stamps, and stickers?”
Shorten. “For fuck’s sake Cam, you’re not listening. Maybe if we start specific. Let’s take our refugee policy, where’s that?”
Milner: “You know we’ve just been photocopying the Libs’ brochure for years now Bill.”
Shorten: “Shit. Fuck. What if Malcom backtracks from all those human rights abuses? Then we’ll look like total knob ends.”
Milner: “It’s ok Bill, we’ll just make photocopies of their new policy.”
Shorten: “Good, agile policy, I like it. Malcom’s saying the word agile alot right? Yep, good, I must remember to throw that word about a bit more. Which reminds me, Cam, can you give me with a daily list of Malcom’s buzzwords that I can roll out?
Milner: “No worries. For now try ‘opportunity’ and ‘future’.”
Shorten: “Got it. Brilliant. The 2016 campaign is writing itself. LABOUR: AGILE. OPPORTUNITY. FUTURE.”
Milner: “Well, no, Malcom’s writing it, but sure.”
Shorten:” Now, what about climate change? We had a policy on that didn’t we?”
Milner: “It’s complicated”
Shorten: “Fuck this. We’ll never find our policies in this mess. Just call Malcom and ask him to email through policies as they come to hand.”