Some took the High Road, most took the Low Road and the election remained as elusive as the Loch Ness Monster in Federal Parliament this week - Part 1 of 2.
Some took the High Road, most took the Low Road and the election remained as elusive as the Loch Ness Monster in Federal Parliament this week.
As some readers may remember, View from the Arch takes its name from the Barracks Arch of St George's Terrace, a street that could be considered a High road - both for its elevation and significance to the CBD.
Extending the metaphor, the Mitchell Freeway (between Parliament and the Arch), is always busy, important and used by everyone - but not so pleasant to look at.
It is, by virtue of comparison, a Low road.
In another first, this week's View from the Arch comes in two parts - and for reasons of time management, the Low Road comes first.
Bills that became law, Bits and Pieces and The Final Word will be posted in the second piece, the High Road.
For the record, Arch does not plan for this to become a regular occurrence.
The Leak
On Wednesday night, the Nine Network's Laurie Oakes reported on information supplied to him by an "Anti-Labor source" revealing that Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd had had a heart-valve transplant in 1993.
According to reports, the source was quite explicit, revealing the date of the surgery, the name of the doctor, and a claim that the replacement valve had a life expectancy of 10 years.
Mr Rudd appeared on the report, disclosing that he had indeed undergone an aortic valve transplant after suffering rheumatic fever as a child, but attesting the transplant was not causing him any ongoing health difficulties.
The matter didn't stop there.
The Smear
The next day, in question time, Labor frontbencher Jenny Macklin asked the Prime Minister whether the Liberal Party had hired private investigators or forensic accountants to trawl through Mr Rudd's records.
Mr Howard said the question - which was undoubtedly done with Mr Rudd's sanction - was more of an accusation.
"I regard the question as contemptible," Mr Howard said.
"I believe that the Member for Jagajaga (Ms Macklin) has deliberately asked this question to generate a false view that my party and my government are responsible for smearing the leader of the opposition.
"Everybody knows that a question is not asked in this house without the authority of the leader," Mr Howard said.
"An accusation of that kind, in the absence of evidence supporting it, represents about the basest possible smear that could be made in this place," he said.
He went on to say Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane also denied involvement.
"I have been informed by the federal director of the Liberal Party that he is not aware of nor has (he) in any way been responsible for the appointment of any private investigators to investigate the affairs of the leader of the opposition.
"He has authorised me to say that on behalf of the Liberal Party organisation," Mr Howard said.
No matter what the PM regarded it as, the line of questioning continued, from Wayne Swan and eventually Anthony Albanese, who asked about any Liberal links to stories about a special sale price on the Rudd family home.
The Motion
That was enough for Treasurer Peter Costello, who took the unusual step of moving to suspend Question Time to claim that the Labor leader was getting his frontbench to do his dirty work for him.
In a motion, he called on Mr Rudd to detail "the smear allegations which he is putting against the Prime Minister, the Liberal Party and the government".
"The leader of the opposition ... (should) come to this despatch box now and with his own mouth make the allegations that he is putting (through his frontbench) ... but which he doesn't have the decency to put himself," Mr Costello said.
"You can't sit there and pretend you've got nothing to do with what's going on."
He described Mr Rudd as a "fraud" trying to put about a "saintly persona".
"To actually be hiding behind this saintly image when you're prepared to have other people go out and do your dirty work for you, actually makes the fraud worse," Mr Costello said.
Mr Costello said the government wouldn't bother putting the information out about Mr Rudd, particularly when his heart operation was made public years ago when he was a regular on the Seven Network's Sunrise program.
"To think that the government would bother itself with a medical condition that occurred many, many years ago when he's on political life support, not on medical support," he said.
Mr Costello suggested that maybe Labor had planted the story about Mr Rudd's health themselves to knock news about his poor knowledge about tax schedules off the evening bulletins.
"He's completely shown himself to be an ignoramus on tax policy. He can't name a single rate, he can't name a single threshold," Mr Costello said.
"What would be the logical thing to do for the government, try and knock that story off the evening news bulletins with an old story about a heart condition.
"Who in their right mind would think about doing this? Who in their right mind might have motivation to knock that story off the evening news?
"To say that the government would have spiked their own story ... beggars belief. The government had nothing to do with that. The Liberal Party had nothing to do with that and the prime minister had nothing to do with that."
Mr Costello said scrutiny was part and parcel of political life, reeling off numerous instances where government MPs and their spouses had been put under the spotlight.
"Far from having having personal attacks, (Mr Rudd) has probably had the easiest run from the media of a leader of the opposition in a very long period of time," he said.
"It's been an easy run and the first sign (of trouble) he's shown himself to be extremely fragile, extremely touchy."
The Counter-Motion
In his right of reply Mr Rudd moved an amendment to Mr Costello's motion, calling for the lower house to repudiates the "consistent negative year-long campaign by the government against the opposition, rather than advancing its own positive plans for Australia's future".
In support of his claim, Mr Rudd highlighted another newspaper article from September 9 that linked the source of dirt on Labor's deputy leader Julia Gillard to a ministerial suite in Parliament House.
"Mr Speaker, when these uncomfortable questions are asked of the government, they wish to engage in all sorts of feigned outrage, as if these things had never happened," he said.
"That (the journalists) made all that up."
"The bare minimum level of accountability is to have back an answer to these questions."
Mr Rudd said he had never made his heart condition public.
"There have been reference some years ago to me being recipient of an organ transplant, but never a representation of any cardiac procedure," he said.
"That is the first time that has been put into the public debate, and those opposite know it."
Mr Rudd also raised comments made by Special Minister of State Gary Nairn's chief of staff Peter Phelps, saying he was "engaging in a campaign of personal smear and innuendo against the Labor candidate for Eden-Monaro".
At a public forum in Mr Nairn's Eden-Monaro electorate, Dr Phelps compared the actions of Labor candidate Colonel Mike Kelly to those of Nazis during World War II.
"What we see is a pattern of behaviour on behalf of this government and a manager of government business (Tony Abbott) sitting there sanctimoniously, believing that he is not aware of the negative campaigns being run against various members of the opposition over time.
"(It) frankly lies in the face of the facts."
He then turned the debate into a personal attack against Mr Costello and his leadership ambitions, saying he did not have "the ticker" to unseat the prime minister.
"Just now we've been listening to arrogance unleashed by the treasurer, the would-be prime minister of this country, who has lacked courage year-in, year-out," he said.
"Treasurer, you aspire to be prime minister of this country,
"You have moved this motion in the house, you lack the courage to ever be prime minister of this country."
The Dirt File
In the same debate, Labor's deputy leader Julia Gillard said the government was pretending to be offended by allegations it had put together dirt files and made personal attacks on opposition members.
But she said it was on the record that a journalist had been invited to a meeting in a ministerial suite and supplied with a dirt file on her.
"For the members of this government to suggest that somehow they are morally offended by the suggestion they peddle dirt, well how does anyone explain that?" she said.
"Who's office was it, prime minister? You're so concerned about the reputation of your government, are you going to make enquires about that?
"Or... (does) your little moral outrage only go so far, and under the moral outrage on the surface, there is all this unseemly conduct going on underneath.
"You must know (it's) occurring.
"So don't come into this parliament with a holier-than-thou attitude when beneath this modicum of moral outrage on the surface, underneath we've got the trawling and the dirt and the carry-on."
Ms Gillard said many government ministers gave "two or three words of policy" before launching into a personal attack, when responding during question time.
"We know this is just the start and there is weeks and weeks of this to come in the future," she said.
The End
The debate continued, and was eventually adjourned with no official decision made - at least until parliament sits again.
Stay tuned for Part Two.