8º of latitude

You have to feel sorry for Nemesis, the Greek god of vengeance. Her mythology is rather more grand – certainly it is more sweeping – than the banal, long-running and still ongoing factional split in the Australian Liberal Party.

Though Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull might choose to demur. Hubris is like that, and both men have it in spades. Turnbull, ambitious lawyer, merchant banker and small-l Liberal, and Abbott, whose views seem sometimes to place him to the theocratic right of Opus Dei, have always danced a mad muzurka.

To outsiders it seems a more personal rivalry than philosophical, though the fault line in Australian conservative politics is deep and widening. There are voters who will never return to the non-Labour side of the ballot paper while the Liberals’ posturing bother boys, currently in charge and apparently in vogue, hold the stick and give voice to the schtick.

That’s the real seismic shift in Australian politics.

Last night’s premiere of the series Nemesis gave us a number of lovely lines from those who agreed to be interviewed by the ABC for the series (Tony Abbott refused). They’ll make a nice boxed set when the series is over.

But my prize for last night’s best quip goes to leading National Barnaby Joyce, who was party leader at the time and deputy prime minister in the coalition government (another risibility).

Of Abbott’s “captain’s call” in 2015 to reincarnate Australian knighthoods and give Prince Philip, consort to the Queen, an AK – Knight of Australia – Joyce said this:

“That was a shocker. This is where you press off on your mobile phone and jump down a wombat hole.”