The Australian confirms what I understood to be the case – when the National and Liberal Party organisations met simultaneously on Sunday they were each given different deals and told that the deal they had before them was the one the other side had signed-off on.
Now, I’m not sure which one’s the “girl” in my metaphor, but I can hear “breach of promise”, and worse, being muttered. I wouldn’t want to be the one who misled.
But then, maybe the intention all along was to arrange a shot-gun wedding. Some of those can be long and loving. I remember Warwick Parer once telling me “It is easier to ask foregiveness than permission,” advice I’ve sometimes followed, and more frequently quoted.