Peter Costello made a rousing address to the Coalition party room yesterday. Walter Slurry has obtained this transcript:

I want to take this opportunity to say a few words about my position as the Member for Higgins and some of the attacks on me in the media.

Our former leader, John Hewson has accused me of not having the balls to challenge John Howard. I refute this accusation, as does my Personal Testicular Trainer.

When I entered this Parliament I had massive kahoonas, real whoppers, or so Glenn Milne told me.

Members of the Liberal party should not need reminding of the hot air balloon-size gonads I paraded around the House of Representatives when I was anointed the Youngest and Longest Serving Treasurer In Australia’s history.

Just saying this again makes me swell with something, although from the looks on your faces, pride might not be the appropriate word.

I should add that by the time I became the Youngest and Longest Serving Treasurer In Australia’s history, the good Dr Hewson had been neutered by Paul Keating to the point where he was more at home with the ideological eunuchs of the Labor Party than with you good folk in the Liberal Party.

Hewson didn’t even have the glandular repositories to know how the GST applied to a sponge cake, let alone a program of tax reform. Fightback my arse. I’ll wager that’s what his nuts have been doing since Dr John was a teenager. But I digress …

Look, obviously, the many years I spent sequestered under John Howard’s shadow may have deflated my once mighty appendages.

And I’ll grant you that the width and depth of said undercarriage may have deflated in a fashion not dissimilar to current interest rates.

But I want you all to know that there were so many times I wished to challenge John Howard, and whether or not I had the balls to do so was not a factor and is not an issue. It was my legs that wouldn’t work … and the butterflies in my tummy …

And in answer to that interjection — hello Tony — yes, I concede that lending my package to Julie Bishop while she was Opposition Treasury spokesperson may have, with the benefit of hindsight, been ill-advised.

Julie Bishop — and please take my comments in the spirit they’re intended, but Julie, I think perhaps you were unsure of what they are designed for. I think it was unwise to use them on Julia Gillard, who as we all know has the biggest balls in the federal Labor Party.

For the benefit of all caucus members, I can reveal that I have spoken with Julie and expressed my displeasure to her about the condition they were in when she returned them to their rightful owner.

My parents always told me to look after other people’s property and treat them as your own. I am confident Julie’s demotion is sufficient punishment for the off-hand way she treated my privates.