After literally months of planning, opposition leader (sic) Brendan Nelson has hit the road with an overnight truck driver as a shameless media stunt to paint him as “in touch” to get in touch with the real issues that face ordinary people.

Federal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says all decision-makers should spend 12 hours in a truck to understand the issues long-distance drivers face.

Dr Nelson travelled from Melbourne to Dubbo on Saturday with truck driver Rod Hannifey.

Dr Nelson says the 12-hour journey opened his eyes to the economic pressures facing drivers.

“The people who make the laws that affect the trucking industry don’t actually have to live them,” he said.

What complete and total shite. According to Dr Bren-doc’s logic, politicians can’t make informed decisions about anything without first experiencing it. I look forward to Nelson spending a night in a homeless shelter so he can formulate homeless policy, injecting heroin so he can formulate drugs policy, having a baby so he can formulate maternity policy, and turning tricks on the street so he can formulate sex trade policy.

Brendan Nelson’s Big Truck Adventure had one objective: this photo.

This is the “before snorting speed” shot. The “after snorting speed” shot has been suppressed by Liberal Party spin doctors.

Perhaps the most insightful piece of information to come out of the whole exercise is this.

Dr Nelson spent the night in the truck and says it is the best night’s sleep he has had in a week.

Those must’ve been some pretty good downers he took at the end of the trip to counteract the speed.

A mate of mine works at the markets in Sydney and some years ago he hitched a lift to Brisbane with a truck driver. About an hour out of Sydney the driver pulled over into a rest stop, took out his log book (containing dodgy entries, of course), placed it on his lap, and on its surface cut up two gigantic lines of speed with his driver’s license. He snorted one straight down and offered the other one to my mate, who respectfully declined. “No worries,” said the driver. “More for me.” And with that he injected the second line straight up his other nostril.

In other news, Brendan Nelson is planning an overnight trip in a truck from Sydney to Brisbane for research purposes.

WOOLEY: …The trucking industry – have you been following the extraordinary heat that’s been generated in this industry? And they’re now talking about a stoppage in just about five days time.

DR NELSON: Look I have, and one of the things that I’m in the processing (sic) of arranging is to do an overnight trip with one of the drivers from Sydney to Brisbane or… You ask about how you keep informed. In my view that’s one of the best ways to keep informed about things.

So the big question is: will Brendan accept or decline?