Opinion polls ain’t cheap these days but at election time the major parties spend a motza on them. Party secs and faction leaders pore over them, searching for hidden trends and subtle messages from the electorate.

But reliable guides to popularity and perception are everywhere if you look hard enough. The latest issue of that beacon of Aussie bbq culture, The Picture magazine, has a big message for Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party if they are man enough to read it.

This week, The Picture editors asked each of the featured Homegirls a deeply disturbing question that goes to the heart of conservative politics. ‘Does Tony Abbott shave his balls?’

This question has plagued political commentators ever since Abbott beat Malcolm Turnbull for the leadership. Many were convinced that the metrosexual Turnbull was clearly in one camp but no one was sure how Abbott hung.
Was he, like Silas in the Da Vinci Code, a hairless god-fearing man who compensated by wearing the hair shirt instead? Or was he the buff boxer from St Ignatius, hirsute and holy to the end?

The 14 Homies were clear. Two said he didn’t shave. Six said he did. But the real poll was that the rest of them (40%) didn’t have a clue who Tony Abbott was!

If Morgans or McNeil came up with a finding like this, there’d be mayhem in the Melbourne Club and blood on the floor in Barton. These are John Howard’s battlers! Imagine 40% of the population not knowing who John Howard was? (It’s a consoling thought, actually). Liberal Party pollsters and analysts need to bone up on these results and consult the chicken entrails at the next Lyons Forum dinner.

They need to study each homie in detail and the voting intentions of thousands of like-minded women will become obvious. Take Bobby Lee from Melbourne. She’s a kickboxing hairdresser who says she would ‘take someone out’ if they said she looked like a slut. She reckons Tony would shave. Alexis from Sydney is a 20 year old student who has a pair of handcuffs permanently attached to her bed and loves being dominated. She says Tony doesn’t shave. Sarah from Hobart who would like to try sex on horseback and sex during a church service, didn’t know Tony from a bar of soap. Just as well though…she’d likely jump the Mad Monk at a church service.

The logical conclusion to these responses is that women who are tough and fight back, reckon Tony’s got no mane down there and is a wimp. Women who like to cop a flogging reckon he’s all man and a hairy beast. And women who are adventurous in their sex lives, don’t know who he is.

Homies represent an important political demographic. They lie in that socio-demographic that is highly mobile, ranges between 18 and 50 years, is often married or de facto and with kids. They are the ultimate swinging voters in every sense of the word and if they’re not on your dance card, then how can you take them home? Tony….Julia??