BY MASHIE NIBLICK IN CANBERRA

AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE MINISTER Richard Marles’ golf clubs are the country’s most devastating secret weapons, according to an expert consultant who receives $26 million a year in fees from the Federal Government.

“The five iron is absolute state of the art technology,” insists Cooper Waterprice III, an adviser on sports equipment who specializes in sand traps and hanging lies. “The others are all on the official secrets list.”

Mr Marles, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, been accused of taking his golf clubs on questionable private Government-funded jet trips across Australia. He insists that he would love to come clean about his $3.6 million flight schedule, which has included Labor Party conferences and Matildas’ football matches, but is prevented from doing so for genuine security reasons.

Labor Party supporters are behind him.

“Bloody oath, you want him to fly Qantas?” said a Canberra colleague. “They cancel so much, he’d never get off the ground. And if you think $3.6 million is a lot, Qantas would just take money and make him get another flight. How much would that cost?”

Cooper Waterprice III says that the private aircraft are essential because the Chinese try to track all Australian ministerial flight schedules for the day they want to decapitate the Federal Government. “They’ll have a sub or a ship offshore and when Albo and his mates climb into their luxury transports, well, zap!”

But the half a million a week advisor is sure the golf clubs are probably the key to Mr Marles’ travel decisions.

“Sure, the Chinese might find out that, like most politicians he would attend the opening of a can of beans if he thought it would boost his profile,” says the consultant. “But more crucially, his golf clubs are actually the country’s most high-tech weapons. Forget your submarines, these babies can turn a golf game in an instant, and that means something on the international stage these days. Look, just imagine, Mr Marles is two down with three holes to play against Xi Jinping at St Andrews in Scotland. He’s deep in a bunker. Aussie pride is at stake; the whole western world is watching. He goes to his top secret clubs, pulls out a wedge or a nine iron and puts enough back spin on the ball to not only land it a centimetre from the hole but to create a shock wave that sends Xi’s ball rolling off the green. I mean, need I say more?”