It's always a worry when we find ourselves agreeing with Senator David Leyonhjelm. But on the subject of South Australia, we are as one.
Leyonhjelm let rip about our favourite serial killer state in the Senate last week, and it was one of the better speeches the Parliament was able to hear before the hippies took it over.
"If the South Australia government was a person, it would be an obese 40-year-old man with awful body odour who lives with his mother, refuses to work, and plays Xbox all day," the libertarian said in widely reported remarks. "He pauses only to demand more Cheezels and iced coffee, or to complain when the lights go out."
He went on to say that "too many South Australian politicians have developed a monstrous sense of entitlement".
We're guessing he was talking about the state's two political leaders, Premier Jay Weatherevent (sic) and Opposition Leader Steven Marshall.
Think about this. Under Weatherill's watch, South Australia was recently blacked out during a storm that was mild in comparison with some we have seen on the east coast. It was exacerbated by Weatherill's love of renewable energy, a policy that is about as bold as his desire to make Adelaide the capital of driverless cars. Another Weatherill achievement is the construction of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital which, now finished but devoid of patients (Yes, Minister), is the world's third most expensive building after Nicolae Ceausescu's Palace of Parliament in Bucharest and the One World Trade Center in New York. Terrifying but true.
But what's the alternative? Steven Marshall is a former businessman and therefore might be thought of as a free-market kind of guy. Not in South Australia. Last week Marshall announced a 10-year ban on fracking in the state's south-east. With South Australia's regional unemployment figures comparing unfavourably with parts of Eastern Europe, you'd have thought he might have been supportive of more power sources which, when we last checked, help drive new employment … and can even help keep the lights on. Not only that but Marshall also came out and scuppered any bipartisan support for a nuclear waste industry – stunning pro-business federal ministers such as Josh Frydenberg and Greg Hunt.
Meanwhile, back in Canberra, South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon jumped to the defence of his home state against Leyonhjelm's attack: "At one level it's laughable but it actually shows the contempt with which people in the east hold SA."
He got that right.
