Is this the politics of our discontent? We may have passed the winter solstice (shout out to all the pagans!) but the political scene continues to be whipped by unforgiving winds and dominated by some very grumpy looking snowmen. And that's before you get to the carbon tax.
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Yesterday, the asylum seeker crisis reached another crisis point and looked like staying there.
Despite calls from across the spectrum for another go at negotiations, people were only talking through the Canberra equivalent of their lawyers (that is, the media).
On Monday, Julia Gillard told the ABC she was ''open'' to discussions with the opposition. But yesterday morning, Tony Abbott tut-tutted that the PM hadn't called, emailed or written to him. And he wasn't planning to call her. ''She knows where we stand,'' he told Fairfax Radio.
For the government's part, they may have been open to compromise but they weren't dropping the Malaysia solution.
The Greens were advocating a multi-party special effort but they weren't supporting Malaysia. The Coalition eventually conceded they too would consider talks … if that saw Labor adopting Howard-era policies. In other words, everyone was happy to ''negotiate'' so long as they got their own way.
The vibe didn't get any more palatable over in the Federal Court, where the News Limited-Peter Slipper-James Ashby snafu continued to provide material for the next Logie-nominated Australian miniseries.
Documents filed with the court included family-friendly messages (allegedly from Ashby to Slipper) such as: ''I'm going to smack u! Arhhhhhhh,'' and ''Cool. Let's f--- them up the a--- instead''.
And this wasn't the only example of bad language and conflict. Mining magnate, Liberal Party super donor and aspiring MP Clive Palmer admitted he had a tempestuous meeting with Abbott last week about lobbyists (that old chestnut).
''Certainly I was swearing at Mr Abbott, there's no doubt about that,'' he said. ''I don't think I was the first person to raise my voice but I may have been the last.''
So thank goodness for little animals.
Yesterday morning, the Opposition Leader visited the local RSPCA. He went to Weston to make a point about the carbon tax and its impact on charities. But it gave everyone else the opportunity to focus on puppies and kittens.
As Gillard noted in question time: ''[Abbott] has even been out trying to scare cats and dogs about the impact of carbon pricing … telling poor old Fido and Fluffy a fairytale about how a cobra and a python is coming to get them!''
Sure, it was still angry politics. But at least it now had a soft, warm coat.
