Peter Slipper's 30,000 pieces of silver

Apparently the job of speaker of the house of reps pays $30G more than a back bench salary.

Which, along with the other attendant perks, makes it worth Peter Slipper's while to sell out the Liberal Party who have wasted a safe seat on him for the past 18 years.

Let's face it, the man is such an oxygen thief that he makes that buffoonish dolt Robert Doyle look like a statesman in comparison.

But I think that heaping a lot of criticism on Peter Slipper is not exactly fair. True, he is an ineffectual and treacherous waste of space who has contributed nothing to public life during his time in the parliament, and who has been most keen on keeping his snout firmly in the trough all that time with as much abuse of perks as possible.

But everyone in the Liberal Party hierarchy has always known that.

The problem I see is that he has been allowed to sit there on green leather for so long, wasting a safe seat which perhaps might have been given to someone more dynamic, more ethical, and more loyal. And perhaps more sober - not that I can talk, given my fondness for a tipple. He used to be a National Party MP in the 1980s, and ratted out the Nats to join the Libs in the 1990s. This is well known, and once a traitor, twice a traitor.

The betrayal has not really been that of Slipper of the Opposition - the real betrayal is that of the Queensland Liberal Party hierarchy towards its members and voters - that they inflicted this greedy and piggish clown on the voters for so bloody long. Didn't they do due diligence on him at some point and wonder what the hell they were doing keeping him in parliament in the first place?