Craig Thomson affair reaches its FFS moment

By ABC's Annabel Crabb

Posted August 24, 2011 12:26:18

Photo: Government backbencher Craig Thomson has assured his parliamentary colleagues that he is innocent. (AAP: Alan Porritt, file photo)

For all the disservice modern forms of communication have done the English language, there is one great compensation. Twitter and txt-speak have given pulsing life to acronyms.

Acronyms are no longer simply the shorthand for organisations or theoretical concepts so arid that it is as much as the human brain can do just to memorise, feebly, a representative clutch of letters. On Twitter, acronyms are condensed little packets of power, a couple of letters standing in for a pungent phrase that would have been used in its longer form, had the writer not been constrained by Twitter's inflexible excess baggage prohibition.

One of my favourites is "FFS". Sure, its extended version (For F***'s Sake) is fairly seamy, and not an expression one would ordinarily use around one's mother. But I love FFS, for its pithy and very Australian blend of implied obscenity with genuine, palms-to-the-skies, you've-got-to-be-kidding exasperation.

Well, I reckon the Craig Thomson affair has reached its FFS moment.

How can you tell when a political scandal has reached its FFS moment?

The first thing to look for is the growth of absurd tentacles to the matter at hand. Like yesterday's Question Time, which absorbed itself for quite a lengthy period in the legal pros and cons of whether Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten should be obliged to come to the dispatch box to venture an opinion on whether the money paid by the New South Wales Labor Party to keep Craig Thomson out of Queer Street should be considered part of the unfortunate gentleman's taxable income.

Anyone in the chamber who had ever even done the photocopying in a legal firm dusted off their robes for a crack at that one, with much reference to House precedent and so forth.

FFS.

The second thing to look for is the incredible opportunism that accompanies the arrival of the police. When the New South Wales Police accepted the package of material supplied by shadow attorney-general George Brandis yesterday and wearily agreed to crack it open for a look, two things happened.

The Opposition welcomed the police's acceptance of the brief as a pleasing escalation to the affair, and immediately adopted the sombre excitement of the helpful crime-scene witness. There was much talk of having "full faith" that the matter would be investigated with the professionalism for which etc etc. The Government, meanwhile, took the grateful scoundrel's approach to the news of the police's involvement. Police investigations, while hardly welcome to any politician, can provide an extremely handy little patch of moral high ground in a terrain of otherwise unrelieved swampiness. "I would love to be able to explain to you how I came to be seated with this underworld crime boss at this table covered with cocaine and paper bags full of cash, and planning approval deeds on which my signature is only just drying. But the police are investigating, and it would be very wrong of me to prejudice that process."

Yesterday, the Prime Minister explained to the House that, what with the cops being involved in the Thomson affair and everything, it was probably better for her to say nothing at all, about either the question of Mr Thomson's use of union funds or of the ALP's use of party funds to come to his rescue.

Oh, FFS.

As happens so often with political scandals, this one has jumped the shark. The furious over-prosecution of side issues obscures the only issue about which anyone sensible should give a damn: did this man use, for private use, funds that were not his to use? That is the only proper question of moral turpitude here.

Mr Thomson has assured colleagues that he is innocent. And no wrongly accused person could ever be in a better position; he has a boss compelled by circumstance to be hugely understanding, a national audience hanging on his every word and a forum - in Federal Parliament - in which he can not only mount a full explanation, but be afforded full parliamentary privilege while doing so.

If there's an explanation for all of this, let's hear it.

FFS.

Annabel Crabb is the ABC's chief online political writer.

Craig Thomson affair reaches its FFS moment - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)