Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Oops, There Goes the Only Woman in Cabinet

"Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous."
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

The Abbott cabinet's Only Woman, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, would have taken note of this extraordinary thumbs-up for the Lib's answer to Lab's Michael Danby in yesterday's Australian:

"Watch out for Josh Frydenberg. The member for Kooyong is a lean and hungry parliamentary secretary. He was the stand-out backbencher of the last federal parliament... Frydenberg had the highest media profile of any backbencher over the past 3 years... He was particularly successful in getting opinion pieces published in newspapers*... Frydenberg has a good pedigree, having worked at length for Alexander Downer when he was foreign minister, then for John Howard, whom he advised on security issues... In some ways he resembles Kevin Rudd in turning professional experience and expertise in foreign affairs into domestic political credentials... Don't be fooled by the seemingly modest nature of his promotion: the emergence from the chrysalis of parliamentary secretary to the butterfly of cabinet minister can be very fast." (Lean, hungry and going places)

After all, it comes from The Australian's "suppository of all (foreign) policy wisdom" and Abbott confidante Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, whose considered verdict on Bishop is:

"Julie Bishop... has produced not a single sentence of substance or originality while in the portfolio." (Bishop's errors of judgment confound the Coalition's woes, 14/2/11)

[*Now which paper could that have been... hm?]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Josh Frydenberg would be ideal as Minister for the Arts.

The black arts.