How “email” “developed” to engulf Opposition “leader”

Some years ago on a holiday on South Australia’s Coorong we stopped for lunch at a lovely bakery where we noticed a similarly unnerving note behind the counter: “Girls” do not use the scourer when cleaning the sandwich grill as it scratches the surface. The pasties were delicious, even if they were prepared by transvestites.

This inadvertent misuse of quotation marks could be used by political journalists as a handy way of re-writing the events of the day to afford them a clearer meaning. In the context of the the Utegate debacle, where nothing has been quite as it’s seemed, the technique works particularly well.

The story began with the emergence in estimates of an “email” which showed that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had made representations on behalf of his “friend”, Ipswich car dealer John Grant, to access federal assistance under the OzCar scheme.

The treasury official responsible for OzCar, Mr Godwin Grech, “testified” under “oath” that to the best of his recollection he had seen an “email” or knew of its “existence”.

Kevin Rudd was “furious”.

Knowing that no such email “existed”, with both Treasury and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet having conducted exhaustive sweeps of every office computer, the PM ordered not just an Auditor-General’s inquiry but an Australian Federal Police Investigation to “get to the bottom” of the affair.

His actions were in no way aimed at embarrassing or humiliating the “Leader” of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, but to put the matter in the hands of those who are at “arms-length” from the government.

When Parliament resumed on Monday the affair blew up well before the beginning of “Question Time”, with Treasurer Wayne Swan “answering” a series of allegations arising from a string of genuine emails he had received about the status of John Grant’s eligibility for OzCar.

Mr Swan “explained” that, even though he’d told Parliament previously that neither he nor his office had ever received any emails concerning Mr Grant, he had not “misled” the House over his involvement.

He also said the fact that he’d even been receiving faxes late at night at home about Mr Grant did not show he had done anything “out of the ordinary” for his friend.

The Government was “satisfied” with Mr Swan’s “explanation” and every key minister took to his feet and the airwaves to “inform” the voters that there was no “conflict”.

Meanwhile the Opposition “Leader” was grappling with the fact that the AFP had now raided Godwin Grech’s house and established that the “email” which had been sent to the PM was a fake, a forgery and a fabrication.

Despite this Mr Turnbull persisted with his attacks on the Prime Minister over the affair, saying the “email” concerning Mr Rudd was a side issue which did not let the Treasurer off the hook.

In an “interview” with Channel Nine News on Monday night, Mr Rudd said how “disappointed” he was that Mr Turnbull had been caught using fabricated evidence to mount a smear campaign against him as Prime Minister.

He said he “hoped” that the issue would not drag on for days because the country had better things to talk about than Malcolm Turnbull’s general uselessness and duplicity and unelectability.

It was not until Tuesday morning that Mr Turnbull “acknowledged” that the “email” was actually illegitimate and that there was now no case against Mr Rudd.

He angrily disputed suggestions that his “leadership” of the Coalition had in any way been undermined by the fact that his MPs were now ignoring his “authority” on everything from border protection to alcopops and the emissions trading scheme.

Meanwhile, the journalists who “covered” this story – this one included – were quizzed by the readers over their 72-hour turnaround in suggesting Kevin Rudd might have to resign to stating that maybe it was Malcolm Turnbull who should chuck it in. The shift in position was put down to the fact that the story had been “developing”.

As a result of the affair the next election will now be a “contest” between a Prime Minister who has turned a crazed conservative conspiracy into his own personal political goldmine, and an Opposition “Leader” who is vowing to keep “fighting” Labor over questions of transparency.

Mr Turnbull is “confident” that the issue will not dominate the public memory and that his “tenacity” in pursing the matter will be rewarded come election time.

He has been “supported” in his handling of the affair by frontbenchers Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey who are “fiercely loyal” to his leadership. And he and others in the party have “laughed off” any suggestion that Peter Costello, who announced less than a fortnight ago that he will not recontest Higgins, is again the subject of leadership speculation.

Mr Turnbull’s only regret over the affair is that it did not come later in the week as it would have easily been overshadowed by the tragic passing both of Charlies Angels star Farrah Fawcett and singer Michael Jackson, a talented songwriter who “loved children”.