In what can only be described as another clumsy fumble for attention, Australia’s FInance Minister Mathias Cormann has lumbered into the budget debate calling Bill Shorten ‘an economic girly man’.

Cormann did intend any compliment as Eva Cox brightly suggested on ABC Radio this afternoon. The Finance Minister was not enlightened or inspired by a view of economics that was not all about secret men’s business. Believe it or not, he meant it as a type of taunt.

Perhaps it’s a cultural thing. Perhaps Belgians fall about laughing when their government ministers use this stunt. If so, it fell very flat yesterday and only succeeded in taking down further Cormann’s reputation as someone who should not be let near a microphone or a job in politics. Further taking down any remote chance he could be taken seriously. And further trashing the government’s reputation with it.

Perhaps we should not be surprised by your behaviour, Mathias. It may well be a form of Tourette’s syndrome. Perhaps it is some form of medical complaint, a type of compulsive verbal tic. Your Prime Minister Tony Abbott certainly has a few. Perhaps it’s catching. Pointless, needless repetition certainly is. Certainly is. Trouble is it sends a message that you are a ‘couple can short of the six pack’. You may know the 1984 movie this comes from.

And it is something Mathias Cormann has said before. Groundhog day again. And again. This is far from the first time that the Finance Minister has performed the girly man stunt and it is unlikely to be the last. There’s not a lot of spare material in the minister’s grab bag of funny lines and other distraction tricks, apart that is from the dark glasses and the white stick. Internationally acclaimed treasurer, Wayne Swan and before him Kevin Rudd were also singled out for the recycled line, figures who tower so far above Cormann that he’d need a ladder to tie their boot laces.

Terminate the practice, Mathias. Go ahead make our day. We know you would like to be a funny man. We know it must get boring as Finance Minister to an incompetent Treasurer in a party falling almost every key performance indicator. We know you crave attention. It comes with the territory. Yes, we agree you do sound like the former Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger but then so, too do millions of other misogynists. It must be like having somebody else’s shadow.

But you are not the Terminator. Give it away. Keep your day job, whatever that is. You couldn’t be any worse at treasurer stuff than Joe, ‘The Gaffer’ Hockey. You don’t have to do anything really challenging. Or even be original. You will find the public servants will generally do it all for you. There must be a few left on the payroll. And help is available. Tony will get Peta to give you simpler instructions. Bi-lingual instructions. You will get the hang of it in due course. Just promise to stop referring to her as Attila the Hen.

And, bonus! In a quick couple of years you won’t have to worry because you will be out of office, as no doubt you have shrewdly calculated along with your access to entitlements and after-politics Costello-type overpaid job sinecures. But not before you have done some serious damage. Damage mainly to your party but also to the image of Australia as a progressive, egalitarian society governed by the rule of law.

But for you and your comrades, termination looms. Fatal political damage as inevitable predicted in a well-known movie: “Listen and understand. That Terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”

What were you thinking, Mathias? Was the stunt to distract attention from your boss Joe Hockey who has once again made a complete arse of himself in public appearing to make another basic mistake on UK television? On BBC’s “ Hardtalk”, a program of vigorous political interviews, it was put to Hockey that Australia was “one of the dirtiest, most greenhouse gas-emitting countries in OECD group of developed countries.” The Treasurer, however, described his interviewer’s statement as “ridiculous”. The trouble for Hockey is that, per head of population, Australia is, indeed the worst.  Many Australian school children could helped correct his answer here. If it was a cover for the boss, it was not necessary.

And it hasn’t worked. Most voters know what to expect with Joe Hockey and cringing embarrassment and a sense of wounded national pride are very much lesser evils when compared, for example, with the potential damage to be caused by not understanding the first thing about what you are supposed to be doing. Of course, Mathias, you have probably worked out the very reasonable odds on quietly inheriting Hockey’s job soon.

Or was it an attempt to cover for Prime Minister and Minister for Women, Abbott’s decent into gibbering madness fleeing as far as he could possibly get from ‘getting in touch with his feminine side’ with his shirt-front challenge to a leader who deigns to wear one. A leader with martial arts credentials and moves that are likely to be a little bit more terminating than the rusty shadow-boxing of a former Oxford Blue.

Was it a quote from Shaun MicAllef’s satirical Mad as Hell? “Shaun, you’re being an economic girly man,” a Cormann character told host Shaun Micallef in an April skit? We are pleased the ABC holds appeal for you, Mathias. Or were you looking with a view to wind up all avenues of criticism. We have read your Prime Minister’s comment that he doesn’t appreciate being criticised on government-funded ABC. Perhaps you can now offer more support. A broader mind, perhaps.

Bill Shorten counter-attacked on Saturday, proposing that rather than “borrowing lines from Republican Tea Party conventions to joke about hurting vulnerable Australians”, Mr Cormann should “face up to his unfair budget”. Bill is spot on but stopped short of adding that Matt could always seek professional help if his condition did not improve. There are many distinguished women in psychiatry, experts and world leaders in their field who would be pleased to prescribe appropriate treatment for the Finance Minister.