So, Mike Rann, Premier of South Australia, is still protesting his innocence in regards to his alleged affair with Michelle Chantelois, a parliamentary waitress. He was single at the time, although she wasn't and, in fact, Michelle is claiming that this affair - which, according to her was 19 months of hot, steamy State Parliamentary passion (some light editorialising there) - led to the breakdown of her marriage. This in turn led to Michelle's estranged husband attacking the Premier with a rolled up magazine while at a Labor fundraiser. He's now due to face trial on aggravated assault charges. For hitting a sitting head of Parliament about the head with a rolled up newspaper.

Wild.

I mean, really, how crap do we want to be? I'm going to go out and say it: Australian politics is bad at sex. Even if the man did maintain a relationship with this woman, it's not exactly groundbreaking stuff. Poor form perhaps, but affairs aren't exactly a rarity in human society. And big Mikey was free as a bird anyway; from where I'm sitting I'd be inclined to say this is more Michelle's issue than it is his. But irrespective of the truth of the matter, you gotta admit that this affair does make for pretty dull reading. Pretty much the most salacious detail we can dredge up is that they might have had sex on his desk, thereby living out a casual and surely often fulfilled fantasy of much of the sexually active population of Australia. And even that's not as interesting/awesome as the resigning Labor press secretary in the Northern Territory who, back in 2002, decided to bid farewell to his job by having sex with his girlfriend in the Speaker's chair. Although, not while the Speaker was in it. That probably would have made more headlines.

Let's look at some more worldly alternatives shall we:

Bill Clinton: changed the entire world's attitude toward the humble cigar.

Silvio Berlusconi: a sprightly man of 73, has spent much of his time as Prime Minister of Italy fending off accusations that he regularly beds 20-something year old prostitutes, and hired attractive young women to attend his parties. He also blatantly stashed his Cabinet with hotties.

John Profumo: back in 1963, Profumo, the Secretary of State for War in Cold War-era Britain had been "hanging out" (i.e. having sex with) a local call girl. Who just so happened also to be having sex with (i.e. "hanging out") the Soviet military attache. This was considered to be "bad form" (i.e. directly bringing the world closer to nuclear Armageddon)

Stephen Milligan: Because cross-dressing, auto-erotic asphyxiators need Parliamentary representation too. I'll let you do the research on that one yourselves.

Eliot Spitzer: former Governor of New York. May have spent in excess of $80 000 shipping $1000 per hour prostitutes in from Las Vegas. Hell, he even used campaign funds to book hotels. Bold.

Mark Sanford: June 18 this year, Mark, the serving Governor of South California, drove his car off in to the night and proceeded to vanish without trace for a week. Was discovered returning to Atlanta where he confessed he'd been in Buenos Aires visiting his Argentinian mistress. As far as I can tell, noone has yet asked him how he actually thought he was going to get away with this.

And that's just a sampling. Especially in the US. Man, those guys go through sex scandals like Tic-Tacs. Whereas Australia can offer:

Troy Buswell: former leader of the WA Liberal party admits to sniffing a chair that had recently been vacated by a female staffer. The Liberals go on to win the election, and Buswell is now Treasurer of WA. Success!

Gareth Evans and Cheryl Kernot: had a 5 year affair while both were members of Parliament. The concept of these two locked in naked, passionate embrace is my go to image when trying to avoid an erection in public.

Kevin Rudd: attends a strip club in New York in 2003. No, that's it. Although, does claim he was so drunk he can't remember any of it. I'll give you a hint, Kev: boobs.

Billy Sneddon: former Opposition leader had a fatal heart attack in 1987 while having sex with his son's ex-girlfriend. Actually, that one's kinda good. Also would have made for one hell of a eulogy.

All in all, I think the message to Australia's Parliamentarians is clear: for the love of God, somebody, somewhere have a sexual dalliance with some measure of novelty value/dire ramifications for state security (I'm looking at you Profumo). I mean, if you can't even muster up a certain degree of sexual brio, no wonder the populace of Australia is so politically disenchanted. Although, I'm also willing to concede that may be due to the generally dry, bureaucratic and monochromatic nature of Australian politics. But, hey, a bit of the ol' slap and tickle wouldn't hurt either. Just as long as it doesn't involve Ruddock. Shudder.