Daer reader, this one was sent yesterday, at the time of writing there was a sense of palpable excitement as the entire  nation stood poised on the brink of an election surprise. A complete surprise!!  For the first  in really really trenchant analysis, we turn to our oracle from the ossuary Paddi-O, who’ll give us the ‘dinkum oil”, as they say at Camp Gallipolli.

And now from Paddi-O

‘the priest washing the feet of 12 men representing the twelve apostles’ . Something for the children:(Find the priest).

In the Catholic ritual of Easter, Holy Thursday commemorates the last supper and has a special mass with the priest washing the feet of 12 men representing the twelve apostles; Good Friday commemorates the crucifixion – no mass that day, just distribution of communion kept from the day before, and on Easter Saturday nothing happens until midnight when the mass of the resurrection can be celebrated. For the pious Easter Saturday is a bit of a non-day (for the rest of us its an AFL feast of football).

Today feels like an Easter Saturday. In the phony war of the current election cycle we are supposed to be unaware that Malcolm Turnbull will visit the Governor General tomorrow and declare his resurrection as saviour of the nation – or will he? Last week showed how brittle his leadership is. The budget fell flat; a huge funding commitment in tax cuts was embarrassingly exposed; as was the ignorance of Malcolm and his would be successor and treasurer. Meanwhile in a calm, measured and increasingly convincing tone, Bill Shorten asserted a credible opposition case, in a budget reply speech that mixed election manifesto with a call to core Labor values. The only thing missing was a humanitarian approach to asylum seekers (of that more later), but the rest was there: Action on equality for women, action on climate change, commitment to universal health care, to public education, to infrastructure, and to fairness.

Shorten despite his part in destroying two Labor leaders has a kind of certainty that can only be created by no-one else wanting the job, and a leadership arrangement bequeathed by Kevin Rudd (of all people) that makes it hard to depose him. And remarkably this has let Labor focus on policy – a huge competitive advantage when after three years and two Prime Ministers the coalition has none to show. Compare this to Turnbull: Captive of the right, lazy in his media performance, increasingly displaying the kind of arrogance that Australians hate, and oozing condescension. Polls suggest we still prefer him as leader, but incumbency means a lot in that number, and the palpable sense of disappointment is huge.

Harold Wilson, the plain man in the raincoat.

Overall Labor is gaining, but possibly concentrating strength in its own seats. Queensland and NSW will be critical and South Australia the wild card. All of this can change and it is a very, very long campaign. The election is eight weeks away, anything can happen in that time. In political mythology the patrician Harold Macmillan when asked what he feared most replied ‘Events, dear boy, events’. So here are four events that are likely to happen over the next eight weeks, each of which could turn this election on its head.

George Costanza, (Sinodinos)

Uncle George and the Property Developers George Sinodinos hangs around Malcolm’s neck like the proverbial albatross. Turnbull can’t get rid of him, that would be admitting guilt and betraying a numbers man, and he can’t embrace him, as the stench of corruption is too rank. Any revelation from an independently minded IBAC or Election Commission that even reinforces suspicion of links between George and the purveyors of fine negative gearing opportunities will create even more havoc in a divided NSW Liberal Party and threaten to derail their part in the campaign. Even without that event, the party is still $4 million short in it’s funding due to the refusal of the party to reveal the names of donors to the Freedom Foundation. Watch this space.

U.S sub prime housing bubble. It’ll NEVER happen here!!!

That deflating feeling. The decision by the Reserve Bank to reduce interest rates in the face of lower than expected inflation is copy-book management, but a political headache. Stagflation, no growth in value, is the worst outcome for a government which has demonstrated a commitment to efficiency by replacing wasteful three word slogans with a two word slogan – jobs and growth. Lower interest rates immediately reduces the value of the dollar against other currencies and while this helps exports and arguably builds growth and a better inflation rate, for the ignorant the drop in the dollar is an affront to national pride (and an annoying increase in cost on that trip to Bali). But it has a far more sinister effect. Passed on by banks ever more rapacious to sell mortgages it fuels the overinvestment in housing, encourages the negative gearing brigade, and thus further heats an overheated market. The Reserve Bank Board meets mid-way through the campaign. If the numbers demand it they will reduce the interest rates, blowing apart the government’s assumption in its budget and drawing unwanted attention to the negative gearing debate. Watch this space.

Huge Fires in Canadia. Its just too HOT in Canadia these days.  Where the hell is Canadia?

It ain’t half hot Mum The election is all but scheduled for 3 July. Winter. Well it should be. As I am writing this at 5 in the afternoon it is 24 degrees. I have both my front and back doors wide open. I have yet to get the doonah out of the cupboard. And it is May, round 7 of the AFL, and its not even cold. The bush is drying out, Tasmania is parched, the coral is bleaching on the Reef, and Koalas in Queensland are facing extinction. In South America mass die off of fish and whales are littering beaches, in Alberta Canada an entire city has been evacuated surrounded by terrifying fires – in Spring! The environment is a big issue in this election and while it should be good news for the Greens politically, in the end increasing anxiety about Global Warming should sway votes to a credible policy that addresses the issue and a party that can form government. And that is not to be found in the Liberal-National Party coalition. Watch this space.

Exporting the Australian Dream. Typical ‘Ideas Boom’ real estate subdivison. ‘Newhaven’, a landmark Property Council of Australia development now selling on Nauru and Manaus Island.

Out of sight – out of mind Manus Island and Nauru are supposed to be remote. Distant. Places that we can ignore and forget, like the asylum seekers we dump there and that Peter Dutton and others call illegal. But they just won’t go away. Papua New Guinea has declared Manus unconstitutional and wants to close it. Dutton thinks we can strong arm our way out of it, but that won’t happen. Nauru will continue to fester, and the mendicant government there cannot be expected to contain the despair of the refugees and detainees it has care of on our behalf and at our behest. And the High Court is hearing a case to declare the continued detention of the people on Manus as illegal on the basis of torture. That decision will be handed down in the course of the campaign. Should the Justices support the case, it will throw what is left of the tattered bipartisan cruelty into the bin, leaving both parties with an excruciating dilemma. Peter Dutton has nowhere to go, the right wing to which he belongs, runs the policy; a smart Labor response could mark a turning point. It is exquisite in our democracy that those yet to have a vote may have such influence. Watch this space.

Harold Wilson, the plain man in the raincoat, did say ‘A week is a long time in politics’ – eight weeks is an eternity and plenty of time for lots of events. Events, dear boy, events’.