The Liberal Party are pushing shit uphill by trying to win the Gippsland by-election in a seat that historically belongs to the Nationals and while faced with strong competition from the ALP. But even so, you’d think they’d select a slightly more, um, meaty issue to anchor their campaign than this one.

In Traralgon one of the most important issues at the moment is trying to save the post office. [Liberal candidate] Rohan Fitzgerald has worked, along with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, to now have 3,800 residents of Traralgon who are determined that the post office must remain in the historic building that it currently occupies. It has been there for more than a century.

Mr Rudd has been to Traralgon but he has refused to guarantee to the people of Traralgon that the post office will remain exactly where it is. And at the same time there is a proposal that once the post office moves – and pensioners are not able to get access to it because of the lack of public transport and so on – that, in fact, it could well become a nightclub.

It is time for Mr Rudd to take a stand for local people in local communities. He must accept the petition from Rohan Fitzgerald. And most importantly, if he’s got the time to go and see Cate Blanchett’s baby, he’s got the time to actually tell the people who are running Australia Post, ‘keep your hands off the Traralgon post office.’

Cate Blanchett test — tick!

Trademark Nelson idiocy and pointless, populist lightweight rantings — tick!

But not only are local voters unlikely to buy the good doctor’s shtick, the press are calling bullshit on it too.

QUESTION: Dr Nelson, isn’t this a Kevin Rudd style stunt? Kevin Rudd doesn’t run Australia Post, why are we here?

This is serious stuff. When you’re the leader of the opposition and you have journalists brazenly asking you why on Earth they’ve bothered to show up to your press conferences you know you’re in trouble. Bren-doc’s answer didn’t reassure any of those gathered.

DR NELSON: Well, it’s almost two weeks since Mr Rudd said that there was nothing more he could physically do to support the Australian family budget. What’s Mr Rudd saying to Australians, what’s he saying to the people of Traralgon and Gippsland? “I’m only the Prime Minister of Australia. I can’t do anything to stop the post office from being moved.”

A classic Nelson non-answer. Thankfully the journos didn’t let him off so easily.

QUESTION: What powers should he use?

DR NELSON: What he should use is the power of persuasion.

BAM! Put that zinger of a comeback in the pool room along with “Just watch” and “Rohan Fitzgerald”.

And then, perhaps because he knows that putting the fear up voters is the only way his joke party will get any votes, Brendan sounds this ominous warning about the future evils of the Rudd government.

And I suspect under this Labor Government that this will not be the last post office that’s going to be moved somewhere where elderly, frail pensioners and others are not able to get easy access to what is a core activity in a regional community.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. The Liberal party may have inhumanely treated asylum seekers, ignored indigenous Australians for a decade, eroded democracy, spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer coin on propaganda, screwed the industrial relations system, invaded a sovereign country, turned their back on the environment, and incited racial tensions, but at least they didn’t move post offices 500m down the street.

Desperate men do desperate things. And things don’t come more desperate than Brendan Nelson’s pathetic attempt to smear the Labor Gippsland candidate yesterday by referring to his previous capacity as an arts festival organiser.

The Labor candidate in Gippsland has been promoting a show which is sexually explicit, would offend the vast majority of Australians and is inconsistent with the sort of values that we would certainly want to see represented in a candidate for the federal parliament. Mr Rudd needs to make it very clear to Australians and the people of Gippsland whether these are his standards and if this is the candidate that he really wants to represent the people of Gippsland.

But karma done got ya, Bren-doc.

It emerged yesterday, after the Opposition Leader branded Labor candidate Darren McCubbin unfit for parliament for booking the show for a local festival, that the Howard government funded the event.

And former arts minister and Liberal senator George Brandis appointed Mr McCubbin to the commonwealth peak body for festivals and praised his abilities.

This man is becoming a parody of himself.

Opposition leader Brendan “I’m a doctor” Nelson is a comedy show with legs and a forehead. His doorstop interview efforts will be studied by future political science students and are sure to become the stuff of legend. Bren-doc yesterday appeared at the campaign launch of Gippsland Liberal candidate Rohan Fitzgerald and he was performing at the peak of his powers.

Firstly, what would a Nelson interview be like without the ad nauseum repeating of his holy trinity message that deserves a hearty drink! each time it’s spoken?

The key issues for the by-election campaign are really going to be for the people of Gippsland to ask themselves, after more than five months of a Labor Government in Canberra, is it easier for me to keep my house? Is it easier for me to keep my small business? Is it easier for me to fill my car up with petrol or put groceries in my shopping trolley?

Drink!

…trying to put petrol in your car, trying to buy groceries, trying to keep a roof over your head…

Drink!

And the issues that are really going to determine the outcome in this election are going to be about housing and mortgages and petrol and groceries…

Drink!

…this is about keeping a roof over your head, being able to feed, clothe and house your children, putting petrol in your car and buying groceries…

Drink!

Has it got harder for me to keep my house, is my job more or less secure than it was, is it easier to put petrol in the car, buy groceries every week?

Drink!

Well, the most important issues are affording your house, making sure that the Government makes decisions that actually keep interest rates at a level that we can all manage, making sure that petrol and groceries are affordable…

Drink! Drink! Drink!

Then in the vein of the good doctor’s previous “Just watch” effort there was this brilliant exchange.

QUESTION: What do you believe that you can offer the Gippsland people that the Nationals can’t?

DR NELSON: Rohan Fitzgerald.

BAM! Take that, reporter. Totally pwned.

And then Nelson got himself all tied up in knots with this hideously mangled metaphor that ended up proving nothing except for his imbecility.

We will be looking for very solid, sound economic management from the Government in the Budget that’s coming up. And let’s just remember – it’s like the cardboard cut out of Mr Rudd in the federal parliament – Mr Rudd last year decided that he was going to run some advertisements to try and tell people he was a fiscal conservative and now we’re about to actually find out just what the economic credibility of Mr Rudd and Mr Swan is.

What?

No wonder Rohan Fitzgerald doesn’t have a single photo or mention of Dr Bren-doc Nelson on his website, unlike 2007 Liberal election candidates who had John Howard plastered all over the place.