Compared to last Sunday morning, I'm in a much better position Lyft-wise: 3 more rides to get to my target bonus total, and 6 more have to be in the prime hours, which go 11am to 1pm.

I have to fill you guys in on this. You know I'm a keen follower of American politics, partly because Australian politics is nowhere near as entertaining. But this week has been a doozy. We have a new Prime Minister! The seventh PM in eleven years, and the fourth to take power through a party room coup rather than winning an election. Our PM for the last three years has been Malcolm Turnbull, independently wealthy and known for attempting to abolish the monarchy. He's been leading our right-wing party (called the Liberal Party, just to confuse American visitors), though he himself is not socially conservative. He took power by knifing the previous PM, Tony Abbott, on the grounds that Abbott was a reactionary moron who was roughly as electorally popular as scrapie. Being an entirely valid criticism (three criticisms), Turnbull won. However, to win the conservative faction's support, he basically promised to roll over for them at any opportunity. He spent his time in office running from his own principles on climate change, same-sex marriage and republicanism, with the result that while he could beat scrapie in an election, he might struggle against, say, a prolonged bout of tinea.

He nonetheless foolishly called a double dissolution election in 2016 on the pressing issue of investigating union corruption, and just union corruption, with the understanding that the VERY IDEA of corruption among the banks, businesses or right-wing politicians is just laughable. Laughable, I tell you! With this master stroke, he managed to reduce his party's majority in the House of Reps to exactly one. (Granted, it was the first time in over ten years that a sitting government had kept any majority, but still.) More than that, due to the vagaries of a double dissolution election, he managed to give succour to the wackaloons of Australian politics. One Nation, our very own brain-dead xenophobes, returned to parliament with four Senate seats. The government finished nine seats short of a Senate Majority.

Naturally, after the election, the demand for a commission investigating union misdeeds (i.e. the entire justification for the election) disappeared without trace. However, public outcry forced a commission into the banking sector, which is still ongoing and revealing truly astonishing levels of corruption. Polling reveals that Australians would now rather entrust their savings to "under the mattress, even if the mattress were on actual fire at the time". The government, having fought against this commission for months, is once again panicked by scrapie's resurgence in the opinion polls, and indeed the suggestion that ebola might be a viable dark horse candidate.

Now, when I say "the conservative faction", you mustn't think they're a unified group. I mean, they all hate Turnbull, but they're split between the ones who think Abbott should be PM again and the young bloods who believe there are entirely new ways to offend and outrage the electorate, and entirely new morons who should have the chance to do so. On that distinction, Turnbull has held power lo these three years. But with the Libs facing oblivion at the next election, Turnbull's one argument to stay in power was in tatters. This was not helped by Abbott basically attempting to bring the government down from with. Apparently he has to destroy the Lib's chances in order to save them. Mission half complete.

The election also spawned the most ludicrous and pointless political scandal I've ever witnessed. Our Constitution specifies that people standing for Parliament can't have dual citizenship. It was subsequently discovered that eight senators and seven representatives were in breach - including the deputy PM, revealed to be a closet Kiwi. The senators were all booted and replaced by also-rans from the same ticket. The reps were also booted and forced a series of by-elections. The booted bods won most of these, after renouncing their foreign entanglements.

The deputy PM won his by-election, then two months later announced that he had impregnated a former staff member, and was leaving his wife and four daughters to raise his fresh spawn. He didn't see any reason why this should concern his electorate, and remains a member of Parliament.

In the interim, Australia held a referendum on same-sex marriage. This was demanded by the conservative faction and designed to try to nobble the "yes" vote. Turnbull gave them almost everything they wanted. It came to naught, and Australia voted in favour - 62% of votes on an 80% turnout (the vote was voluntary). Tony Abbott's electorate went Yes by 75%. It is now law.

Now. When Turnbull knifed Abbott, he cited the fact that the Libs had lost 30 Newspolls in a row. Turnbull's government has now lost 38 Newspolls in a row. The govt did poorly in July by-elections. The one thing keeping him was in the job was that they had no one better. The final straw was when he got rolled by Abbott's mob on energy policy. To try to stop a revolt, Turnbull jettisoned Australia's emissions target from the Paris Accord. It didn't work. Instead one of Abbott's acolytes, Peter Dutton, attempted the most cack-handed coup in Australia's history. On Friday he forced a leadership vote. Turnbull promptly declined to stand again. Dutton lost the vote to Turnbull's Treasurer, Scott Morrison. Abbott etc brought down the government in order to make no change to government policy whatsoever.

One final parting gift. Turnbull had earlier promised that if he lost the leadership he would resign from Parliament, as it was too destabilising to have a former PM hanging about like Banquo's ghost (I'm looking at you, Abbott). He is still promising to do so, forcing a by-election. A reminder: the government's majority in Parliament is... one seat. Vale Turnbull. As one commentator said, "He leaves a proud legacy of the banking royal commission he failed to stop, corporate tax cuts he failed to start and the National Energy Guarantee he failed to understand."

In conclusion, a bit of trivia for you: the Australian PM is the highest-paid government leader in the OECD. This is some value for money we're getting, I think you'll agree.

Damn, billytea. That is epic.

Damn, billytea. That is epic.

Seriously. The last time a PM served a full term in this country was over ten years ago. Stability!

I confess to not following the Australian politics closely, but have subconsciously noted that they seemed to be in my world newsletters more frequently. My dictum remains, if there must be political corruption it should at the very least be entertaining.

I confess to not following the Australian politics closely, but have subconsciously noted that they seemed to be in my world newsletters more frequently. My dictum remains, if there must be political corruption it should at the very least be entertaining.

I don't know I'd call any of this corruption. Self-serving, yes; not serving the national interest, certainly; but not actively corrupt. Small mercies, I suppose.

billytea, I actually woke up this morning and decided that I probably need to follow another country's politics as a hobby and as I miss the mere appearance of sane politics and the news here are a celebration of gossip and horror. So thanks for covering this.

Amazing, billytea.

Wow, billytea, that is indeed epic. Best of luck to Australia.