SWIMMING WITH SHARKS

Politicians are generally a pretty dull bunch. You’d be entitled to think that the only reason they yell out during question time is to keep everyone awake.

As for studying Hansard, think of the worst novel you’ve ever read and double it.

Like the fictional Leo McGarry said in the West Wing series, there are two things in the world that no-one should ever see being made: laws and sausages.

However, Victorian parliament had a bit of excitement last week when Nationals MP, Paul Weller, rose in chambers to address the Racing Legislation Amendment Bill.

The honourable member for Rodney got a little sidetracked at one stage and, for the record, had this to say about the importance of the equine industry among his constituency.

“I mention Alabar Stud in my electorate – it is for harness racing horses. It is probably a little-known fact, but this is how important Alabar Stud is to the harness race: it supplies semen for 5000 mares. The stud exports it to New Zealand. We get all the New Zealanders coming over here to win our races … I will explain the process. They start collecting the semen at 5am. They get the stallions in and then they put it in a little lunchbox with temperature control and they put a little chocolate frog in there. When it gets to New Zealand, if the chocolate frog has melted, the semen is off, and that is the quality assurance.”

At that point the acting speaker asked Mr Weller to get back on track (i.e. the bill at hand), but not before he had changed my mind (slightly) about the boring nature of parliament.

What I won’t be doing in future, however, is eating any more chocolate frogs. Sorry Freddo!