An abbot, a bishop and a bull walk into a party room.
The abbot walks in smiling but leaves looking sombre. When it is his turn bull walks out wearing the smile the abbot lost. The eagle-eyed bishop, or "Julie" as we will now call her, remains unmoved. Her time will come, should she choose to take it.
For those of you who enjoy brutal political dramas of Shakespearean proportions, or Orwellian allegories, look no further than Australian politics where there is a Brutus waiting at every corner.
It seems our leaders are realising it is much easier to get elected by a room of a hundred they see regularly than to sell an election campaign to millions.
Full-term serving prime ministers are a thing of the past, a distant memory reserved for those high-school-age or above, which harks back to a simpler time when people didn't seem so worried about how Australia's refugee intake affects the homeless.
Malcolm Turnbull was just a guy whom one might sit next to on the ferry from Rose Bay.
Abbott was concerned with the health of the nation – literally – and as Health Minister sparred with Gillard over vaccination policies before mid-term party leadership even came into question.
But the times, they are a-changin'.
Australia's prime ministers have had their share of scandals (a disappearing Harold Holt, a deposed Gough Whitlam), but it seems we have now set a new holding pattern: start a term with one Prime Minister, finish the term with another.
The one thing that has remained unchanged is the scathing reviews aimed at any politician who fails to meet our standards. Undermining the sanctimonious has long been an Aussie pass-time, yet in the cold corridors of Canberra it has reached an extreme in full-blown mutinies.
It's a case of serve or get served in the new Aussie rulers' rules.
All that's left to wonder is whether the Bishop will soon topple the king, in the political game of chess.
Grace Mathew is a Sydney-based writer, graduate of International and Global Studies at the University of Sydney and recipient of Goldman Sachs Global Leadership Award. For contact, email grace.mathew@live.com .
Grace Mathew's previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/grace-mathew.html
