Imagine you are a husky fellow of simple tastes and modest abilities. Imagine that, until now, you’ve been a long way back in the queue to the throne, but that suddenly the whole line of succession has been catastrophically blown up, leaving you as the heir apparent.

Where would you turn to find a precedent for your frightening situation? Could there perhaps be a work of cinematic art that might provide a way for you to understand your predicament?

Joe Hockey: The King Ralph of Australian politics.

The hardest working man in Parliament, Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey, has written his first press release in one-and-a-half months, and his fifth since being appointed to the second most important job in the Liberal Party.

That is all.

I’m sick of certain sneering leftists on this website making fun of Joe Hockey. I think you’re all just afraid that his commonsense approach to the nation’s finances is starting to get through to people.

Yesterday in the Canberra Times, he blew the lid off a loopy socialist scheme to destroy all fun in Australia, forthwith.

The Government may also… increase the price of cigarettes by $2.50 a packet and draught beer by 15c.

Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey said it was ”not good to see that beer and ciggies are going up” in the budget

No, Joe, it’s not good. I have just worked out on the back of a coaster that these hideous Stalinist imposts will add $270 a week to my entertainment expenses. How does this help anyone? Swan might be drunk on power, but what are the rest of us supposed to do for kicks when a schooner costs as much as a Hyundai Getz?

Anyway, as of this weekend, I’m starting to think this boy has what it takes to go all the way. Go, Joe.

Here’s Media Monitors’ table of last week’s 20 most mentioned politicians (via Crikey). First person to find on this list the holder of the Liberal Party’s second most important job gets a hand job from John Surname in addition to his RuddBucks.

Nick Xenophon is higher on the list than Joe “alleged Shadow Treasurer” Hockey. Nick Xenophon.

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. Joe Hockey, the alleged Shadow Treasurer, has been missing in action for months now, and with the global financial crisis, CPRS backflip, and imminent budget you’d think he’d have plenty to say. However, it’s still impossible to find a single press release from the Merchant of Boom since 25 March.

So enough is enough; it’s time to find out exactly where Joe Hockey is and assess his progress on the voyage to FAIL. GrodsCorp is offering a bounty of $900 (John Surname’s RuddBucks) for the capture of Joe Hockey, dead or alive.

A desperate measure perhaps, but these are desperate times for the Liberal Party. Even ideologically confused rabbles deserve a treasury spokesperson.

Pernicious critics have recently been casting doubt on Big Joe Hockey’s ability to garner media coverage. Well put this in your crack pipe and smoke it, leftists.

The shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, has three cats – Bridge-It, so-called because it was rescued from the Harbour Bridge, Bluey, rescued from a giant python in Far North Queensland, and Shirley, rescued from a dogs’ home.

“Bluey is affectionate and he is my man,” Mr Hockey said. “The other two are stand-offish but Bluey hangs out and you can have a conversation with him.

“I’ve also got a fish tank in my office. I had a very large fish called Big Kim. I felt as long as he was alive we had a chance of winning elections and, sadly, it’s still alive. I used to threaten my staff when I was away from Parliament that if Big Kim died so, too, might they.”

That’s right – only halfway down a lazy SMH puff-piece about politicians’ pets, Joe gets six sentences of clear air on the vital topic of stray cats and humorously-named goldfish. And best of all, it doesn’t even look like they rang Wayne Swan.

Watch out Ruddy – Joe’s coming.

First Joe Hockey was missing, then he was sighted, then he was lost again. With thanks to Twitter’s @andrewbolt, Joe Hockey has been found again.

I thought I’d found him but now I’ve lost him again. I know there’s pig flu and Susan Boyle and all sorts of important things going on in the world right now, but surely the global financial crisis rates as an important issue too. With this in mind I went over the Liberal website to look for any Joe “Merchant of Boom” Hockey media releases. On the first page of 20 press releases I found…

None.

And on the second page of 20 press releases I found…

None.

There were really important items such as “Rudd catering upgraded, troops go hungry” and “Gillard pinches 2020 summit idea from Julie Bishop” but nothing from (supposedly) the second-most important person in the Parliamentary Liberal Party.

Thinking that maybe Joe was writing heaps of press releases but they just weren’t getting published on the Liberal website, I headed over to his personal site. Checking out the media page I was excited to find some press releases, but disappointed to see that the most recent one is from March 25. March 25! Has there been no economic news of note in the intervening time? Has Rudd’s government done nothing worthy of comment or criticism in over a month? What the hell’s going on, Joe?

Joe? Joe? Has anyone seen Joe Hockey?

Finally got around to watching last weekend’s Insiders (I want to have ABC iView’s babies) and was overcome with fits of laughter as Malcolm Farr ripped shit out of Andrew Bolt. However, I blinked away the tears long enough to see a clip of shadow treasurer Joe Hockey and can confirm that he is in fact alive, contrary to Jason’s report the other day. I also noted the most hideous tie/shirt combination known to mankind, along with the worst tie knot I’ve seen since grade eleven.

“I got the cab driver to do my tie for me because I was too busy looking up ‘economy’ in the dictionary”

A few days ago Malcy Turnbull announced some funky Web2.0 stuff on funky Web2.0 Twitter.

Funky!

So I headed over to the Libs’ new blog site (attached to Malcy’s personal site) to check it all out and was shocked to learn about the opposition’s plans for an uprising. First there was the Velvet Revolution, then there was the Orange Revolution, then there was the Purple Revolution, and now Greg Hunt is organising the Water Revolution!

Rise up against Teh Left!

First commenter obviously doesn’t work in Hunt’s office.

Another post on the blog features Joe Hockey predicting the apocalypse.

Calm and measured, Joe

But a comment on Hockey’s post is surely in the running for GrodsCorp’s comment of the month.

Snap!

Andrew Bolt, via Twitter, pwns Joe Hockey.

Brand new shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, begins his voyage to FAIL by heading back to cuddly Sunrise for a cuddly interview with cuddly Kochie. Except things didn’t quite go to plan when Kochie got all serious and asked a hard question.

JOE HOCKEY: Good morning, Kochie. Looking very serious.

DAVID KOCH: Why wasn’t Julie Bishop any good?

Ouch! Poor Joe thought that hard questions were banned from Sunrise but the joke was on him. Kochie then tried to trap him with the Cash Rate Conundrum.

DAVID KOCH: [Julie Bishop] got caught out though, originally, by not knowing the official interest rate. What is it?

JOE HOCKEY: The official cash rate from the RBA? 3.25, Kochie. But nobody is paying it. Maybe you’re paying it, but I’m not.

A lucky escape, but the next question would prove to be Hockey’s undoing as Kochie asks to see the CV.

DAVID KOCH: What are your credentials? What do you know about it?

JOE HOCKEY: I have had a lifetime career involvement in financial services, both as a finance and banking lawyer, as Financial Services Minister, as an advisor on privatisation, a whole range of different jobs, and as Minister for Employment. Everything will come down to jobs over the next two, three years. Jobs, jobs, jobs. It is also a case about being prudent. I have been prudent in my own way with my own finances.

Going okay so far; he even managed to get Malcy’s triple-jobs line in there. But then the wheels started to come off.

DAVID KOCH: Well that’s because you are married to a finance nerd as well.

JOE HOCKEY: That is right. She is a nerd.

DAVID KOCH: A finance nerd.

JOE HOCKEY: A finance nerd. I love my wife. I don’t know where I am going with this.

And Joe Hockey loses his way while talking about his wife. FAIL.

Stocky, stocky, stocky Joe Hockey,

So hearty, so jolly, so hale!

The journey from Sunrise to Shadow is over,

Now for the voyage to FAIL.

First there was You Watch.

QUESTION: You want to Prime Minister, how are you going to turn that polling [9% preferred Prime Minister rating in Newpoll] around?

DR NELSON: You watch.

Then there was Rohan Fitzgerald.

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

DR NELSON: Rohan Fitzgerald.

And then there was the Blanchett Test

…Kevin Rudd found the time to go and visit Cate Blanchett’s new baby. If he has got the time to do that, he has got the time to meet pensioners and seniors organisations including those people protesting in Melbourne and actually listen to what they have to say.

I mean [Rudd]’s got the time to go and visit Cate Blanchett’s new baby and that’s terrific and take a gift, and if he’s got time to do that then he or indeed the relevant Minister should be, Stephen Conroy should be getting onto Australia Post and saying look we’ve got a big issue in Traralgon about place of the post office.

But now we’ve got two new ones:

The Solar Panel Defence
Whenever a question about climate change or the emissions trading scheme gets too hard, Bren-doc pulls out the Solar Panel Defence.

If Mr Rudd is able to botch something as relatively simple as solar panels on our roofs it’s hard to have confidence that he is going to be able to completely redesign Australia’s economy to deal with climate change.

[...]

And Mr Rudd seems to be in a hurry to push through an emissions trading scheme very quickly, and in the process risks botching it in the same way that he’s botched other things such as solar panels on roofs…

[...]

If Mr Rudd can’t get solar panels on roofs right, I doubt that we have confidence in him to get this major transformation in our economy right.

The Hockey Distraction
This one’s awesome. You can almost hear Nelson’s head imploding as the Hockey Distraction non-sequitur comes out of his mouth.

QUESTION: Does it disturb you that one of the candidates, Jamie Briggs, who was John Howard’s adviser on IR and other things is having used against him his advocacy of WorkChoices as, by other Liberals in Mayo, is that [inaudible] is that something that would be best left behind?

DR NELSON: Well the only response I’d put to that is that one of my greatest mates with whom I share digs in Canberra is Joe Hockey, and he was the Minister. So there you go.

“So there you go.” Take that, you parasitic journos.

The Labor government has announced its intention to ram 22 pieces of legislation through the House of Representatives this week, necessitating 10pm sittings of Parliament. The opposition, through Joe Hockey, has claimed that the rushed timetable will not allow sufficient debate of legislation enabling things such as FuelWatch and equal benefits for gaymosexual couples. The government, through Anthony Albanese, has hit back accusing the opposition of hypocrisy due to its habit under John Howard of doing the exact same thing with legislation covering areas such as industrial relations and asylum seekers.

I was highly critical of John Howard’s government when it dodged scrutiny and debate of its legislation by using its numbers to force it through Parliament as quickly as possible; it was anti-democracy and bad for Australia. But Labor using the primary school argument of “they did it first so we’re going to do it as well” makes a total mockery of Kevin Rudd’s pre-election rhetoric that his party would restore back to government the respectability that had been eroded during the Howard years.

Kevin Rudd and Labor should allow proper debate of their legislation in Parliament or else they risk lowering themselves to the democracy-hating levels that John Howard used to enjoy flirting with.