This week on the campaign trail …

*Pic: Malcolm and Andrew press the flesh during Malc’s visit to Launi on June 8 … From … ‘Andrew Nikolic ‏@andrewnikolic Jun 8. With PM @TurnbullMalcolm on the banks of the Tamar River, discussing importance of Launceston’s levies.#ausvotes’. From Malcolm Turnbull’s Twitter feed HERE

The current PM, Malcolm Turnbull, has announced the demise of his plans to privatise the collection of Medicare revenue.

This scheme – under which the government would bear all costs but a private company would collect the money – was to be called MacquarieCare.

It was believed to be modelled on the trendsetting funding arrangements of BassLink, which have proved so popular in Malcolm’s constituency.

The PM has blamed Bill Shorten for this setback to jobs and growth.

Bill Shorten has given the kiss of death to a second BassLink by announcing that he will fund a business case analysis of it.

A distraught Will Hodgman has seized on this treacherous act of economic rationalism as a setback to jobs and growth.

Malcolm and Bill had the second Great Debate. Informed sources suggest it was as eventful as the first.

Meanwhile, a boatful of Sri Lankans has set sail from Indonesia having concluded their scheduled R&R.

They will arrive off the coast of Christmas Island a few days before the election and just before the media blackout on election coverage.

Several children will be thrown overboard.

Malcolm, wearing a laurel wreath, will shake his fist at them from the shore before they are herded aboard an RAAF jet by machinegun-toting SAS commandos for return to Sri Lanka.

Sepia-toned media coverage will be effusive and timely.

Jacqui Lambie, who has yet to receive any corporate funding at all, called on all other political parties to send her a list of their donors.

Right effing now, thanks.

Andrew Nikolic announced that no-one was “silly enough to try and link a single event to climate change” and pointed to Launceston’s narrow escape from flooding as proof of divine support for his policies in Bass.

The Tamar yacht basin is being raked.

Meanwhile, Andrew has gone on R&R with his family to see the Great Barrier Reef before it vanishes in a single event of coral bleaching.

*Luigi (known to the Editor) is a floating voter. He has worked in the tourism industry in the north of the state for the past two decades and has a jaundiced view of government at all levels. He doubts that political parties are ever truthful. Conversely, he willingly admits that his own opinions should be taken with a grain of salt.