Politicians are planning to binge on TV political thrillers House of Cards and Borgen and read books penned by Tolstoy, Richard Flanagan and Australian Paralympian Kurt Fearnley, according to a random survey of the MPs' holiday plans.
Fairfax Media contacted several Cabinet ministers and prominent MPs and senators to see how they planned to spend their summer breaks as well as their wish for the new political year.
American author and foreign affairs writer Robert D. Kaplan featured on the reading lists of both the Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and the former Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, who was recently appointed Social Services Minister.
Mr Morrison, clearly a US politics fan, said he would be "lamenting the end of Boardwalk Empire" a US series based on the prohibition era and instead be reading Kaplan's The Revenge of Geography, Coolidge by Amity Shlaes – an examination of America's thirtieth President and Candice Millard's book on Theodore Roosevelt.
The indefatigable Foreign Minister said she hoped to plough through four books in her break, including: Henry Kissinger's World Order, Michael Lewis's expose on Wall Street Flash Boys, Kaplan's Asia's Cauldron – the South China Sea and the end of a stable Pacific. Ms Bishop's hope for the New Year is "to build on foreign policy initiatives for PNG and South Pacific".
Ms Bishop, a House of Cards devotee planned to watch the Danish political thriller Borgen, which was also recommended by Labor's Treasury Spokesman Chris Bowen. Mr Bowen's summer reading list includes London Mayor Boris Johnson's book on Churchill and The Fourth Revolution, which argues democracy could be at risk if the state isn't reduced and reformed.
Mr Bowen's boss – Labor Leader Bill Shorten – is planning to read Pushing the Limits by paralympian Kurt Fearnley and in a dig at Prime Minister Tony Abbott's penchant for British period television series Downton Abbey, Mr Shorten said he "worried it had a bit too much influence on certain politicians".
Mr Shorten outed himself as a Network Ten viewer preferring to turn on Modern Family, The Project and Mad as Hell, which has mocked his daggy one-liners – best known as "zingers".
Mr Shorten joked he'd like to see "Zinger" enter the Oxford Dictionary in 2015 but more seriously said "I want next year to be a much better year for Australia than 2014 – Australians were badly let down by Tony Abbott's broken promises and unfair policies this year". But National MP George Christensen said his main wish for the new political year is for Bill Shorten to employ a comedy writer "so at least some of his zingers will be funny".
Clive Palmer is taking some time out from warring with former PUP Senator Jacqui Lambie to read Tolstoy's lengthy tome War and Peaceand in a sign he is still obsessed with bringing down his nemesis the Queensland Premier said he'd like to watch a television series called "Campbell Newman – Final Chapter". But he wished "peace on earth to men of goodwill" while noting "you don't have to own a sheep station to be a sheep".
Education Minister Christopher Pyne is planning to catch up on series two of the Machiavellian political thriller House of Cards, as well as read Richard Flanagan's acclaimed The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which won this year's prestigious Man Booker Prize.
The ever optimistic Mr Pyne said his wish for 2015 was to get his HECS reforms through the Senate, which have been rejected by the Senate once already because they would uncap university fees for students.
Conservative Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi plans to read Game of Thrones, watch Sons of Anarchy and said he'd like to see "increased transparency of government spending, electoral funding and political entitlements" in 2015, and in a shot at his own side said "an element of conservatism wouldn't go astray either".
But NSW libertarian Senator David Leyonhjelm said he'd be reading "the inside of his eyelids" over summer and watching anything that didn't involve a ball "particularly not cricket or tennis". His wish for 2015 is "for same sex married couples to have the right to protect their marijuana crops with firearms". However he does plan to pack a biography of Edmund Burke in his hand luggage for his trip to India.
