Well, not quite. But a funny thing has happened on the way to the Senate.

Let’s be honest, Tasmanian senators have a reputation for being aloof and unaccountable. When was the last time you saw one holding the fort at a tell-me-your-opinion stall at a local market? Not on your nellie.

It’s hard to think of any senator of the last two decades as aloof and cloistered as Liberal Senator Eric Abetz. First chosen to replace the retiring Brian Archer in 1994, he has then been re-elected in 1998, 2004, 2010 and 2016.

Never has he had to get out there and justify his worth to the people of the state and ‘win votes’. Abetz has had a different modus operandi completely, that of manipulating the party machine to ensure wonderfully lofty positions on the Liberal ticket come election time. Above-the-line voters have delivered every time.

This has allowed him to live a politically-footloose life of unaccountability. Hate gays? Hate China? Hate trans people? Hate Black Lives Matter? Hate trees and love abusing scientists who bell the cat on bushfire risk? Love fudging the German citizenship that should have disqualified him from even sitting in parliament? Love hanging out with cranks in the nightly cesspit of Sky After Dark? Get into slut-shaming? Hang around with the extreme Christian fringe?

When you’re ‘an Untouchable’ with both the bully-pulpit of parliamentary privilege at your disposal and a lock on the top of the ticket, you are free to be as crass, unreasonable and downright obnoxious as you want. Wading ‘bravely’ through the battle clouds of the culture wars, his hard-right, endless whack-a-mole crusade against anything reasonable has been the game Abetz has played for 27 years.

I could the weary the legs off a Byzantine desk with examples, but perhaps one will suffice. After the entire state voted a resounding Yes in the marriage equality plebiscite of 2017, Abetz voted No to ‘represent’ us in Senate on the resulting legislation. No accountability. No moral sense of the need to actually be the voice of the people. For more of the serial failures of Senator Abysmal, see here.

And then suddenly, perhaps like a rainbow on a dark day, he was demoted to third in the batting order for the next half-Senate election behind Senators Duniam and Askew. Never mind that Duniam is his own protege, as is Senator Chandler (not up for re-election this time), and indeed Hobart Councillor Simon Behrakis. Despite several times failing as a state candidate, the Tasmanian government found a position for the wee dear as advisor to the Minister for State Growth.

You might think that now being a widower, with a parliamentary legacy of sweet peu de chose, his yes-men in place, and all the hints in the world from his own side of the fence that his days are numbered, he might have done the decent thing and shuffled off. Gone boatin’. Fiddled with his rosary while watching Days of Our Lives.

‘Decency and Senator Abetz’. If a My Chef Rules contestant tried that as a food pairing, they get voted out.

Hey Ripley, check this out…Senator Eric Abetz is reinventing himself as a man of the people. Since that May pre-selection bombshell, he is now undertaking a campaign of appearing at any funding announcement or grandstanding opportunity he can find.

He’s even manufacturing them. In June he called a media conference about the junior soccer ground project at Chigwell, dragging with him Acting Mayor of Glenorchy Bec Thomas. Never mind that the funding was secured through significant lobbying by Clark MHR Andrew Wilkie, former mayor Kristie Johnston and Football Federation Tasmania, and that Abetz had nothing to do with it.

The man is so desperate for publicity that he’s even appearing at publicity stunts for ‘ribbon cuttings’ that aren’t even ribbon cuttings because the facility is not yet complete. Down in the Huon Valley, he posed with Mayor Enders: “We are delighted to announce that the new 3km Port Huon to Geeveston Walking Track is now open. The scenic walking track forms part of the improved pedestrian trails connecting the two towns. We thank the Australian Government for generously committing $1,250,000 through its Community Development Grants Program.”

But: “Please note: The contractors working on the track have experienced unexpected delays with a section of the raised walkway from Port Huon Sports and Aquatic Centre to roughly opposite Doody’s Hill Road approximately 500 metres in length. Works will be completed in the coming weeks.”

Just to show that old habits die hard, here he is with Alderman ‘Golliwog’ Brendan Blomeley in Clarence. This was barely a month after the alderman copped an absolute national flogging for his promotion of race-based caricatures.

The Examiner, a media business in northern Tasmania, has picked up Senator Abetz as a columnist. I’m not a subscriber – I prefer journalism – but interestingly no other senator nor indeed Senate candidate receives as much exposure. It’s almost like The Examiner is part of, you know, a campaign.

Recently Ec had a wig at the ABC over not being ‘representative’. Ok, lol for that considering who it’s coming from. Friends of the ABC asked for a right of reply, and were refused. But they did get published in Tasmanian Times, and it’s worth reading.

Dashing around the island, alternately ranting at sustainability or human rights or anti-poverty or <insert something here> advocates in between stage-managed photo opportunities of government largesse, it’s become quite the pantomime. Prised out of his office and into a flesh-pressing man of the people, Abetz comes across as both weird in his impositions and uncomfortable on a stage.

It reminds me of two things. One is the crazy, degenerate gazingstock that film-maker Nick Wray had become by the time of Lightning Over Water, in which a young and wide-eyed Werner Herzog follows him around seemingly mesmerised by the bizarre spectacle of it all.

The other is Bob Hawke. Having made plenty of packing-crate speeches as a union boss, Hawke was as comfortable on the street as any Australian politician in living memory has been. Hawke, who I knew personally, could quickly shift gears up or down; a discussion could lurch between academic tone and the beer garden buffo at his whim, and yet still come across as authentic.

Abetz has very little of such skill. It remains to be seen exactly how exposed he is going to be during the election campaign. He appears to be treading a fine line, putting himself ‘out there’ more than he has ever done in order to shore up some of the crankypants conservative vote. To get a viable amount of votes to win from third, however, he will need to go further.

Does he enough courage to do this?

Does he enough courage to stand before the Tasmanian people, look us in the eye and say to us: I will represent you. I stand on my record. I am worth six more years?

Whilst there is no doubt that in his own universe he is some kind of misunderstood martyr, this is the kind of courage he has never possessed.

Juliette Rosenthal is a Tasmanian-born former federal public servant who worked in the area of policy development and analysis. She returned to Tasmania after retiring and is patiently learning how to grow olives.

JOHN HAWKINS: Abetz and Channel Highway Land Deals.