Government process is no laughing matter. At all. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous the whole thing can be at times, you’d better not laugh at it lest you feel the unyielding, steely-gazed wrath of Bronwyn Bishop. After Tony Abbott launched another attempt to repeal the Carbon Tax in parliament today, Labor frontbencher Julie Collins, the minister for Franklin, found the whole thing to be just a little bit too much, and responded by bursting into fits of laughter. And, as it so often can, that laughter snowballed for little-to-no reason at all, and soon the fact that there really wasn’t any reason to be laughing became an uncontrollable source of humour. But Bronwyn Bishop didn’t find any of that funny, and actually, seriously, I-assure-you-I’m-not-making-this-up, kicked Julie Collins out of the chamber. For laughing. Really.
We all know that Parliament sittings come across resembling an unruly Grade 3 class dizzy on lemonade. But this borders on the ridiculous. With the stern confidence of a protagonist in a disaster film whose crackpot theories won’t be proven right till its too late to save anyone, Bishop acknowledged the presence of infectious laughter in the chamber and moved to nip it in the bud right away. The question remains, what would’ve happened if she’d let this brief display of revelry in a regimented, formal environment go unchecked?
It might have spread! First, the Labor front bench; Anthony Albanese would’ve cracked almost instantly. The man has a weak constitution and seems prone to occasional fits of actual feelings. Then it’d whip through the backbenchers, and around to the cross-bench. Andrew Wilkie would be a tough nut to crack, but even he would ultimately be powerless to resist this disruptive new Parliamentary scourge, forcing thoughts of pokie reform out of his head for the first time in years, albeit briefly. And then, much to everyone’s horror, it’d attack the Liberal side of the room. Philip Ruddock would collapse in a fit of giggles; after thirty-years in Canberra lord knows he could use a bloody laugh. It’d make its way across the Government cabinet, though Malcolm Turnbull started laughing right at the beginning, much to his own party’s disgust. And finally, at long last, the epidemic claims its last victim in the chamber, Tony Abbott. Who, despite genuinely laughing, still somehow manages to make it look ever-so-slightly menacing.
So if preventing adult humans from actually expressing positive emotion and, god forbid, having a little bit of fun in the Australian Parliament is necessary to stave off total democratic collapse, then kick everyone out. Otherwise perhaps Speaker Bishop needs to chill, just a little bit.
