With gratitude to John Clarke and Bryan Dawe. Clarke plays a senior official in the Prime Minister’s office with responsibility for parliamentary staffing. He has a stack of envelopes.
DAWE: Thanks for your time.
CLARKE: Pleasure, Bryan. Would you like an adviser?
DAWE: No thanks.
CLARKE: Suit yourself. The offer’s there.
DAWE: On Monday the 26th of October the Prime Minister wrote to the One Nation MP David Farley.
CLARKE: Lovely letter, Bryan. Beautifully set out. Helvetica.
DAWE: Helvetica?
CLARKE: Swiss font, Bryan. Strictly neutral. Discreet. Almost gnomic.
DAWE: It gave him a Personal Adviser 3, paid up to $200,000.
CLARKE: Effective immediately. We don’t muck around. It’s the quick and the very dead in Canberra.
DAWE: He didn’t ask for one.
CLARKE: That’s the beauty of it. Most people have to ask.
DAWE: Pauline Hanson has been asking.
CLARKE: Has she?
DAWE: She wrote to the Prime Minister on the 4th of February.
CLARKE: We got that one.
DAWE: And on the 11th of August.
CLARKE: Got that one too. They’re both in a very safe place. She hasn’t written another, has she?
DAWE: No. She’s had no reply.
CLARKE: Well, you can’t go handing out staff to just anyone and his dog who asks, Bryan. Where would it end? We’ve got a subsidised staff cafeteria to run, you know. They call it the Trough.
DAWE: One Nation says it has 0.83 staff per parliamentarian. Labor has 4.09.
CLARKE: That’s right. Allocated strictly on need.
DAWE: Who decides the need?
CLARKE: The Prime Minister.
DAWE: How does he decide?
CLARKE: He looks at the whole person, Bryan.
DAWE: Murray Watt says One Nation wants staff based on how it’s going in the opinion polls.
CLARKE: Disgraceful. Staff go on seats, Bryan. Not polls.
DAWE: One Nation is ahead of Labor in Newspoll.
CLARKE: Which is exactly why we go on seats.
DAWE: The Prime Minister has met Mr Farley privately several times in recent weeks.
CLARKE: Getting to know him. Pastoral care. Property portfolios and super don’t just grow themselves, Bryan. Ask anyone on the frontbench.
DAWE: One Nation says the Prime Minister started those meetings.
CLARKE: Well, someone had to. He’s new to this caper, Bryan. Granted, Dave’s got a bit of wealth in assets, but when it comes to the politics of the Trough, he’s a total ingénu.
DAWE: One Nation says senior ministers then raised grant money for the Murray Darling Basin.
CLARKE: The Sustainable Communities Program. Terrific program.
DAWE: Mr Farley’s electorate is in the Murray Darling Basin.
CLARKE: Is it? Isn’t he a lucky fella, then.
DAWE: The day after the letter, the government announced $50 million in Murray Darling grants.
CLARKE: Completely separate, Bryan. Another day. Another dollar.
DAWE: Before that it gave $14.5 million to a rice cake factory in Leeton.
CLARKE: Rice cakes? Ever had one of those sticky rice cakes? Export quality, sticky, Bryan. Wonderful product.
DAWE: Leeton is in Mr Farley’s electorate.
CLARKE: Is it? Gee, he’s a lucky fella, Bryan. Some blokes have all the luck.
DAWE: A minister says Pauline Hanson is jumping at shadows.
CLARKE: Quite right. There are no shadows, Bryan. It’s all done in broad daylight. On embossed letterhead. Cream wove, Bryan. Top quality. Heavy-duty special-occasion stationery.
DAWE: Why Mr Farley?
CLARKE: Very experienced man. Ran a big cattle company.
DAWE: He was a member of the New South Wales Nationals from 2015 to 2020.
CLARKE: Say that again?
DAWE: The New South Wales Nationals.
CLARKE: The National Party of New South Wales. The oxymoron? You don’t know how funny that sounds. But all jokes aside, and you know it’s all dags and gags at the Nationals, the funny bone of Australian politics, we’ve all been up the old Faraway Tree. We can’t hold that against him.
DAWE: He was a financial member for five years.
CLARKE: But did he know he was a member?
DAWE: He let it lapse in 2020.
CLARKE: Easy done.
DAWE: He applied to join the Labor Party.
CLARKE: He didn’t, did he? You are having me on.
DAWE: Labor knocked him back.
CLARKE: We had a lot on at the time.
DAWE: In 2023 he gave $100 to Labor’s campaign in the Aston by-election.
CLARKE: And we won Aston, Bryan. That’s the sort of return we like to see.
DAWE: He praised the independent he later ran against.
CLARKE: Open mind.
DAWE: He said shopping around for a party was like going to the gym.
CLARKE: Except you don’t sniff another member’s chair when you go to the gym. But that was Troy Buswell. And you do realise we’re talking about WA?
DAWE: It was a staffer’s chair.
CLARKE: Still, a man has to keep himself fit, in and out of modern politics.
DAWE: In August he walked into a meeting of Liberal backbenchers.
CLARKE: Easy mistake. All those doors look the same.
DAWE: On the way out he said, “I could see myself sitting here.”
CLARKE: Far-sighted Farley, they call him.
DAWE: He’s in One Nation.
CLARKE: At the moment, yes.
DAWE: He told Insiders One Nation’s migration plan was “not too different” from Labor’s.
CLARKE: See? He gets it.
DAWE: He said he’d display three flags in his office.
CLARKE: Very inclusive.
DAWE: Then he said there was “one flag that unites every Australian.”
CLARKE: Flexible, Bryan. You can’t put a price on that.
DAWE: You put $200,000 on it.
CLARKE: Up to, Bryan. Up to $200,000.
DAWE: Mr Farley turned it down.
CLARKE: Well, we don’t muck around, Bryan. Farley’s the one who’s fart-arsing around. Too big for his utes.
DAWE: He called it unsolicited.
CLARKE: Lovely word.
DAWE: On Sunday the 1st of November Murray Watt said the government was responding to a request Mr Farley made.
CLARKE: That’s right.
DAWE: Mr Farley says he never asked.
CLARKE: He asked by not asking, Bryan. We’re very attentive. We pick these things up.
DAWE: So which is it? Requested or unsolicited?
CLARKE: Both, Bryan. That’s what makes it a Personal Adviser 3.
DAWE: Mr Farley also said it was a staffer he needs.
CLARKE: Need, Bryan. I told you. Strictly on need.
DAWE: He said he didn’t want to end up in something like the Marrickville Golf Club grant.
CLARKE: Lovely club. Very working class.
DAWE: It got $6 million.
CLARKE: Through a very rigorous process.
DAWE: It was invitation only.
CLARKE: Which is very rigorous. You just can’t rock on up.
DAWE: The Prime Minister is an honorary member.
CLARKE: He didn’t know, Bryan.
DAWE: He said the money would stop raw sewage going into the Cooks River.
CLARKE: Very important river. Huge environmental significance.
DAWE: Officials told Senate Estimates the grant had nothing to do with sewage.
CLARKE: And the Prime Minister has since clarified that.
DAWE: He said, “it was not correct.”
CLARKE: Which is correct.
DAWE: Barnaby Joyce got the same position when he joined One Nation.
CLARKE: Standard welcome pack, Bryan. Lanyard, parking spot, Personal Adviser 3. And the beer mug, the Toby jug in the shape of the leader in a burqa, and a plaque that says you can’t take the piss out of Pauline.
DAWE: On the 15th of October One Nation tried to send its staffing bill to a Senate inquiry.
CLARKE: We couldn’t support that.
DAWE: Labor, the Greens and the Coalition all voted against it.
CLARKE: Rare show of unity, Bryan. Tells you how important the principle is.
DAWE: What principle?
CLARKE: That the Prime Minister decides.
DAWE: Murray Watt says One Nation is controlled by unelected, shadowy figures.
CLARKE: Shocking, Bryan. Shocking.
DAWE: Who advises the Prime Minister on staffing?
CLARKE: I do, Bryan.
DAWE: Were you elected?
CLARKE: Not as such. But I’m not shadowy. I’m on embossed letterhead. That’s top-shelf stationery, Bryan. And boss cocky.
DAWE: Thanks for your time.
CLARKE: Pleasure. Here, Bryan. What are you on at the moment?
DAWE: I’m not leaving the ABC.
CLARKE: Nobody said anything about leaving. Could you see yourself sitting here?
DAWE: Where?
CLARKE: Here. Nice chair. Two hundred thousand. Effective immediately.
DAWE: I didn’t ask.
CLARKE: That’s the beauty of it, Bryan. We’ll put you down as a request.
The facts Dawe puts to Clarke are on the record: the Prime Minister’s letter and Farley’s rejection, the Monday delivery, Hanson’s unanswered letters, One Nation’s staffing figures, Murray Watt on polls and Farley’s “request”, Farley’s “unsolicited” staffer, Watt on “unelected, shadowy figures”, the Newspoll, the $50 million Murray Darling round, the $14.5 million for SunRice at Leeton, “jumping at shadows”, Farley’s party history, the gym, “I could see myself sitting here”, migration, the flags, Troy Buswell’s chair, the Marrickville Golf Club grant, the Trough, Barnaby Joyce’s identical allocation and the Senate vote of 15 October. Clarke’s answers are satire.
A tribute to John Clarke (1948 to 2017), whose method this borrows and whose genius it cannot. With thanks to Bryan Dawe.
The Clarke and Dawe format and characters remain the work and property of John Clarke (Roderick Willows Pty Ltd) and Bryan Dawe. This sketch is an independent homage, written and published by Urban Wronski, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.
