Inspired by the discovery that I have an actual fan for the blog, I thought I might resume production; though hopefully in a more cheerful manner than of yore.

I decided that today I would mention some of the interesting additions to the language arising from recent political reporting.

The most outstanding example is the verb ‘to Albanese’, which I define as the act of discarding a ‘sincere’ promise when it has passed its usefulness in obtaining votes in an election. As in:

‘I have chosen to Albanese your promised tax cuts.’

There is, I understand, a Chinese (or perhaps Spanish – the web is unhelpful here) proverb – ‘Be Careful what you Wish for’. Perhaps we should have an Australian proverb – ‘Be Careful what you Vote for’.

Other interesting possibilities arise from the television program ‘Nemesis’.

We might have ‘to Dutton’, meaning to scheme at the removal of a popular and effective Prime Minister in the hope of getting his job – although purists might argue that the action should properly be called to ‘Dutch Ditch’ in appreciation of the significant agitator behind the scenes, Mathias Cormann.

Following on from this of course we have to ‘Morrison’, meaning to slither up unnoticed through the ranks of plotters and seize the advantage by default.

Going back in time a bit, we could have ‘to Howard’, which is to combine a popular wish “Let us become a Republic’ – which might well have gained a majority vote – with the condition ‘with a President appointed by ME! ‘ which predictably sank the proposal without trace.

I won’t even begin to consider what we might cull from the Tony Abbott fiasco. No doubt readers – if they can stomach thinking back to those days – will find a fruitful crop of possibilities. There seems to be no proof that he was, as popularly supposed, a cardboard cutout operated from behind by Peta Credlin. Still, there might be a possibility of mining some useful verbs from the juxtaposition of the two of them.

An enduring source of sadness for me was the untimely resignation of Peter Costello. Perhaps Peter was savvy enough to realise that, had he stayed, we would have had ‘The Abbott and Costello Government’ – and anyone old enough to have read the old ‘Film Fun’ comic paper, with its strip cartoon of the slapstick characters Bud Abbot and Lou Costello would be hard put to find a better description of almost any Australian government that I have experienced. Tony certainly did his best to live up to it but without Peter its charm was missing.

I won’t try to exploit poor old Barnaby’s troubles and I ask you not to do so either. He can dig himself deep into the doo-doo without any help from us. I recall Malcom Turnbull with his arm around ‘My dear old pal Barnaby’ when Barnaby was re-elected – hence maintaining Turnbull’s majority – and then disowning him when he acted like – well, like Barnaby. Devise a new verb for Turnbull’s behaviour then – if you can.

I will stop there and await your contributions.