Can you imagine this?

Can you imagine a situation where an average bloke decides to stand for the Senate because he hasn't got anything better to do - he is bored with his lot, his job is looking shaky and he reckons that a career in politics will set him up for the rest of his life?

He does the rounds for a while - interviewing with the Liberals, the Greens and the Labor party but each of them reject him as a candidate. Finally he snags a gig with the religious right who call themselves "Family First". They were made for each other.

And then he is accidently elected to the Senate on the back of preferences from the Labor Party. Surely that is democracy at work - but sometimes the political process gets things horribly wrong!

And then reality bites - he is finally a Senator but his message is well hidden in the *noise* of the Senate - what is he to do?

Well he can't pretend to be part of the mainstream political landscape - because that has been well and truly raked over by the major parties - who resent any intruders into "their" space.

So one afternoon over a bottle or seven of "jungle juice" he maps out a plan to appeal to the nutters, the dimwits and the stupids - surely they need someone to represent them too?

He starts to consolidate the religious right, the climate change sceptics, the creationists and every other motley collection of half baked nitwits on the planet - or at least in his sphere of influence.

And so that's what he does. Before long he is representing them all - even managing to mention two or three crazy causes each time he gets his face in front of a television camera.

But the thing he didn’t consider is how he now appears to be one of these nutters, dimwits and stupids – in fact he has become their political leader.

And there is one sure thing about Australian elections. We will happily vote for the charlatans and the liars and the light fingered but we definitely won't vote for the nutters who are represented by this particular Senator.