All The Prime Minister's Men

Rat-Fucking, Ostraya-Style

One of the guys Bernstein tracks down in 'All The President's Men' is a guy who is a professional campaign hack. Stuffing ballot boxes and running innuendo are his thing. He calls it "Rat-Fucking". The obnoxious little term encapsulates the very pettiness, the mean-ness, and the rudeness of the activity. After all, how could fucking a rat even be so pleasurable or worthwhile unless one's member was suitably small?

You hear about dirty campaigns, but you don't get to see just how dirty it gets until you come face to face with rank fear-mongering and appealing to racism. Just how bad does it get?
Well, the Liberal Party have been caught out indulging in their own rat-fucking.

Bogus flyers from a fake organisation called the Islamic Australia Federation were distributed through the letterboxes of voters in a marginal seat, claiming the Labor opposition sympathised with Islamic terrorists.

The leaflets referred to the men imprisoned for the 2002 nightclub bomb attacks in Bali, which left more than 200 people dead. The flyers also claimed Labor support for the building of new mosques in the area.

Then, they tried to pretend it was a Chaser's Style Prank. Spin us another one!

Speaking on ABC radio this morning, Ms Kelly said she did not approve of the pamphlet, but labelled it a "Chaser-style of prank", a reference to ABC TV comedy team The Chaser.

"I think its intent is to be a send-up but obviously it hasn't worked," she said.

"I think if you read it you'd be laughing. Most people who have read it have said 'That's a Chaser-style of prank'."

Ms Kelly said the "prank" was "really immature stuff" that would not influence any voters.

Ms Kelly described her husband's actions as "skylarking" after a few beers.

"I'm a bit upset with him, but no, look I love him," she told Southern Cross Broadcasting.

"He hates the unions with a passion and after weeks and weeks of letterboxing, what gets to be boring material, of a repetitive message that we get them to letterbox all the time, they come up with their own skylarking over a few beers and think that something's funny," Ms Kelly said.

Skylarking after a few beers she says? Right. I see. Have a few beers, get little tipsy and one Liberal Party honcho says to another, "I know, let's go Rat-Fucking!!!!"
"Yeah. What a great idea. Luckily there's an election campaign going on."
"What'll we do?"
"We'll hand out a pamphlet saying the ALP supports Muslims and terrorism and towelheads in general."
"Yeah! Great idea. That'll teach the Sand-nigger-loving ALP!"
Is that how it goes, Mrs Kelly?

Naturally the Chaser Boys shot back:

The Chaser's executive producer Julian Morrow has now invited Ms Kelly, who will retire after the election, to join the comedy team.

"Jackie will obviously be looking for a job," Morrow said.

"One of the criticisms of The Chaser is that we don't have any women on our team.

"Bronwyn Bishop has got the inside running, but Jackie is welcome to make an application."

Morrow questioned whether the Liberal party "prank" had truly been in the spirit of The Chaser.

"If this was really a Chaser stunt, where were the big props, where was the Osama Bin Laden costume," he asked.

"The only real similarity [with a Chaser gag] is that the Liberals in Lindsay got caught and may be facing charges.

"It's a bit of a worry when the best argument you have to defend your ethical practices is that you were doing what The Chaser does.

"We are hoping this will lead to a profitable political consultancy for The Chaser in the future."

Good to see such shenanigans being brought to light. I heard reports from BD that this stuff was going on in his electorate during the 2004 elections. It's sort of funny how it comes up in this election and not the last. As fr as I can tell, rat-fucking is as old as Democracy.

Watching Lateline tonight, it was clear Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock just wanted the whole damn thing to fade away. Anthony Albanese of the ALP was pushing ahead with the allegation that the NSW Liberal Party is captive to the right faction and that this rat-fucking is widespread across many electorates. The AEC is allegedly going to look into this, but it was clear that Phillip Ruddock had no stomach to go through the ins and outs of what it might mean for Gary Clarke.

All of this reminds me of the last days of the Keating government when Ralph Willis suddenly came forth with a document that purportedly stated that the Libs would cut grants to the States. It was a set-up - a forged document leaked to Ralph Willis who bought it hook-line-and-sinker - and Ralph Willis looked mightily stupid as the curtains fell on the last ALP government.
It's nice to see a forged government finally biting the Coalition in the nuts.
As they say "he who lives by the sword..." Hang on, make that "he who fucks rats, dies by Rat STDs."