Numbers of women in the Coalition have dropped to their lowest level in 25 years. Credit:Andrew Meares GEORGE BRANDIS: [interrupting, as though he hadn't heard anything] As Attorney-General I'm a little concerned that endorsing Mr Rudd would be seen as a dangerous acknowledgement of the existence of the United Nations. After all, our entire immigration policy has been largely predicated upon pretending it doesn't exist. PETER DUTTON: [startled] Sorry, what? GEORGE BRANDIS: You know, silly little things like the United Nations Refugee Convention of 1951. We start paying attention to that and god knows where it's going to end. PETER DUTTON: I've never heard of it. How's it spelled? [pulls up Wikipedia on his phone]

The first meetingof the newly expanded cabinet. Credit:Andrew Meares CHRISTOPHER PYNE: [shrugs] To be fair, the post of UN Secretary General is a meaningless sinecure with no power or influence. It's like making someone ambassador to the United States: it's the perfect job for a useless duffer with no skills that's humiliated themselves in public, time and time again, and you just want to boot off somewhere out of sight so they don't embarrass you any further every time they open their mouth. TONY ABBOTT: Now hold on just a min… "Hello, I'm the Beatles!" Credit:Andrew Meares MALCOLM TURNBULL: Tony, what the hell are you doing in here?

TONY ABBOTT: Um… I left my lunch in here. I just came in to get it. [picks up onion] I'll be on my way. [leaves] PETER DUTTON: [reading his phone with mounting horror] Oh… my… god. Do you know that it's actually illegal to send people back to their country of origin if you know they'll face persecution? It's called "refoulement"! Why did no one ever mention this? MALCOLM TURNBULL: Shut up Peter. Now, we really need to make a decision. I've had Kevin on hold for 40 minutes, and you know how sweary he is when he doesn't get his way. JOSH FRYDENBERG: As Environment and Energy Minister, my biggest concern is that Mr Rudd speaks fluent Mandarin. What if we tells the Chinese about what's happened to the Great Barrier Reef? They might not want to invest in our mines! We can't risk it. MALCOLM TURNBULL: Good point. Scott, what do you think?

SCOTT MORRISON: Um… jobs and growth? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: [pointedly] Got your heart set on being the next US ambassador there, Scotty? BARNABY JOYCE: As Deputy Prime Minister, I… PETER DUTTON: [getting increasingly agitated] Article 31 specifically states that refugees can't be punished for illegal entry into a contracting state! What are we doing? How are we all not in the Hague? GEORGE BRANDIS: [wrestling him] Give me that phone! People have the right to shut the hell up!

JULIE BISHOP: Malcolm, wasn't the whole point of crippling the NBN specifically so that people wouldn't go finding things on the internet? PETER DUTTON: [howling] I'M A MONSTER! WE ARE ALL MONSTERS! TONY ABBOTT: [wearing an unconvincing moustache] Sock him Pete! Use extreme Border Force! MALCOLM TURNBULL: Everybody sit down! We have to make a decision today: the UN need a nomination, Kevin's on hold, and… KEVIN RUDD: [from speaker phone on desk] I'm not on hold, Malcolm. I'm still right here.

[everyone freezes] MALCOLM TURNBULL: Um, Kevin, hi. Sorry about that, just one sec. [places him on hold] George, you told me you put him on hold. He's heard the whole thing! GEORGE BRANDIS: I, um… look we just rule that this discussion was a matter of national security and therefore covered under the Border Force Act - if he so much as mentions it, we can jail him for two years. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Exactly, we just send him to Nauru! PETER DUTTON: [bursts into tears]

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Everyone shut up: we need a solution. Scott: come on! SCOTT MORRISON: Um… we don't have a spending problem, we have a revenue problem? JULIE BISHOP: Oh great, he's overheated again. MALCOLM TURNBULL: Goddammit, we can't even agree on this? We barely scraped into power, you idiots, Parliament hasn't even sat yet and I've already got the LNP demanding their own party room, a bunch of conservative backbenchers treating Sky News like their personal Mean Girls burn book, and after this I've got yet another meeting with Pauline Hanson to explain, once again, why we can't have a Royal Commission into whether Safe Schools is halal. This is meant to be the easy decision. If we can't manage this, what's this government going to end up looking like? KEVIN RUDD: [icily, from the phone] I'm right here, Malcolm.