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Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison has not only joined the ranks of romance novel writers but his first foray into the genre will be published exclusively online in The Bug!

Mr Morrison’s bodice ripper, The Master of Marketing, will be serialised in Australia’s No1 family news and netzine in coming days. In the meantime, we sat down with the current Member for Cook and talked about the inspiration behind his new career move.

The Bug: We know your print version of your new book is being published by Pills and Moans but we are honoured that you’ve exclusively selected The Bug for its online exposure.

Scott Morrison: You welcome. How good is The Bug?

The Bug: Thanks but, phew! We’ve read some chapters and your hero is very much a ladies man, isn’t he? His activities had even us old hardheads blushing.

Scott Morrison: Yes, Morris Scotson is indeed very much a lothario who doesn’t take no for an answer.

The Bug: Morris Scotson? He doesn’t live in The Shire, does he?

Scott Morrison: No. He hails from Porpoise Spit, part of a fictional coastal tourism hotspot I’ve created for the novel’s setting.

The Bug: Porpoise Spit? The book doesn’t have ABBA songs in it?

Scott Morrison: No. What a funny question. It’s all about this clever local marketeering genius and the lengths – if you’ll excuse the pun – this almost unfairly handsome man goes to to secure the marketing/promotional gig at the local tourist board.

The Bug: He certainly works his way through the staff at the board to get what he wants in the end.

Scott Morrison: And to get his end in.

The Bug: Exactly! This guy virtually oozes sex appeal; he doesn’t rip bodices off; the ladies do it themselves!

Scott Morrison: He’s a sex magnet, all right, and all those ladies he beds are only human, after all. Morris is the exact opposite of me, I’ll grant you that.

The Bug: Your former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce also ventured into romance feature writing – his first novel also appeared in The Bug – but he was a legendary pants man while you are a devout, one-woman Christian. Was it incredibly hard to get your decent, devoutly Christian mind inside an individual who is the exact opposite of you when it comes to matters of the flesh?

Scott Morrison: It was very hard. I don’t even know if Barnaby was a one-woman-at-a-time man – his fictional character certainly wasn’t – whereas as you and every one else knows, I’ve only ever been a one-woman man. Jane and I…

The Bug: Jenny and you!

Scott Morrison: Yes, Jenny and I have been together since we were high-school sweethearts. Jane and the two …

The Bug: Jenny.

Scott Morrison: That’s right. Jenny and the girl are my entire life. My character in The Master of Marketing is also married with two girls but he’d risk anything to get his leg over, if you’ll excuse the French…

The Bug: Yes, he is a lad. And he’s got the gift of the gab too. He sure knows how to use that mouth of his, judging by some of the tongue-in-groove action in the book.

Scott Morrison: Sorry, you’re making me blush now. I found it very hard to write that sort of stuff. Ja … Jenny and I … have always gotten all the wordly rapture we’ve ever wanted from engaging in, as the good Lord Jesus Christ above directed us to do, decent, conventional, missionary position se…se… se….

The Bug: Sex.

Scott Morrison: There’s no need to get coarse.

The Bug will begin serialising The Master of Marketing from next Monday!