Turnbull the know-all … Dual citizens in parliament … PM declares the High Court has already found for the government … The illusion of brilliance … No postal voting for “silent” electors … Polly Peck reports from Canberra 

Attorney General Brandis was a little more circumspect: 

“Now the government has taken advice from the solicitor general, Dr Donaghue, and on the basis of that advice, we are confident that on the proper interpretation of Section 44, Mr Joyce, because of his unawareness of his status as a New Zealand citizen, if indeed that turns out to be the case, would not be disqualified.”  

Of course, it would be nice if we could see Doc Donaghue’s advice, but it’s out-of-bounds. 

High Court judges just love being told by politicians how to interpret the Constitution. We saw this in the USA when Trump started bullying the judges to uphold his immigration bans … 

Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017

And … 

If the U.S. does not win this case as it so obviously should, we can never have the security and safety to which we are entitled. Politics!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017

What could have possessed Turnbull to be so idiotic? His grasp of contempt law was just as flimsy when he went into bat for his three drongo ministers, Hunt, Tudge and Sukkar, who sledged the Victoria’s appeal judges for “weak” terrorist sentencing.  

Turnbull’s tenuous grasp of legal niceties is a product either that he rarely attended lectures at law school or that he’d adopt any reckless expediency to try and save his tottering government. 

Press gallery hacks in Canberra frequently refer to the PM as a “brilliant barrister”, with the inference that he must know what he is talking about and has a status superior to that of John Howard who was called, on occasions, a “suburban solicitor”. 

Turnbull has not disabused the hacks of the myth that he had a splendid career at the bar. He was, in fact, a barrister for little over a year from 1982-83, reading with Bruce McWilliam’s friend, John Sackar, and Peter Hely on 6th floor of Selborne Wentworth. 

Turnbull’s narcissism and bumptiousness went far beyond what is normally found in Phillip Street and he was on the nose pretty quickly. This didn’t bother him because he repeatedly said to anyone who would listen that his colleagues at the bar were far inferior to him in ability. 

In fact, no one can remember any outstanding success he had as a barrister. His time there was brief and undistinguished. According to Paddy Manning’s book Born to Rule, his most remarkable quality was that, unlike other barristers, he did his own typing. 

Signs of his over-reaching precocity were evident in his columns for The Bulletin, written as a law student. On one occasion he gave Garfield Barwick a stiff lecture that he should resign as chief justice. 

Turnbull was a solicitor in partnership with Bruce McWilliam when he had his triumph in the Spycatcher case, acting for former MI5 officer Peter Wright, the publication of whose book the Thatcher government was seeking to prevent in Australia. 

Peter Wright was referred to the up-and-coming Turnbull by Geoffrey Robertson in London. 

As in-house counsel at Consolidated Press Turnbull persuaded Kerry Packer to sue Doug Meagher QC, counsel assisting the Costigan Royal Commission. The defamation case was thrown out by Justice David Hunt who gave Turnbull a huge flea in his ear.

As a result of making public attacks on Meagher and Costigan as the case commenced Turnbull had “managed effectively thereby to poison the fountain of justice immediately before the commencement of the present proceedings”. Justice Hunt threw out the case as an abuse of process.  

Turnbull has staked his “brilliance” for a long time on the back of the Spycatcher case, alleged brilliance that in the current climate has escaped him entirely. 

It’s worth remembering that when politicians are urging citizens to vote one way or the other in the same sex marriage postal vote that many of them may not be eligible to vote themselves. 

The Bureau of Statistics, which is conducting the vote, cannot access the address of people on the Electoral Commission’s silent roll.  

There are about 100,000 such people, comprising of politicians, judges, captains of industry and other worthies who are afraid the great unwashed could egg their front doors if their addresses were known. 

For the bureau to access the “silent” addresses would require an amendment to the Commonwealth Electoral Act.