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.

Opposition leader (sic) Brendan Nelson has been planning his Big Truck Adventure for quite a few weeks now, and details about the event are starting to leak out.

GILBERT: You’re going trucking, you said before you departed. You’re spending the night….an overnighter with a trucker. When is that going to take place? You said you wanted to do that to get a sense of the pressures on the transport industry. When are you doing that?

DR NELSON: Yeah. From memory I think it’s about Friday week, just under a fortnight Kieran, and my guys tell me I think we’re doing Melbourne to Dubbo. Look, it’s important. This is a critically important part of our economy, of our transport sector and these truckies are literally the backbone of the nation. And they’re doing it very, very tough. I think the best way to get a feel for things is to actually spend a bit of time with one of the drivers and listen to and feel and observe, if you like, the real problems that these guys have got to endure in doing their jobs.

Rubbish. Spending a night in a truck will do absolutely nothing to help Nelson and his team of clowns write better transport policy. It’s nothing more than a cheap media stunt that aims to give the impression of Nelson being “in touch”, just the same way that helping punters pack groceries and fill their cars with petrol does bugger all to aid the development better energy and food policies.

(Besides, Nelson prefers to develop his policies on whiteboards just minutes before they’re released.)

So apart from fiddling log books and snorting speed, what else will the good doctor be doing?

…apart from having a good chat to him, I expect to have a bit of Slim Dusty on in the cabin.

This man is becoming a parody of himself.