The Sauce: South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris strums up mischief

Labour Council boss Arthur Rorris made sure Scott Morrison’s Hawaiian holiday was on voters’ minds on Saturday, dressing up in a florid shirt and wielding a ukulele and a hose.

It is the holiday Scott Morrison desperately wants to forget — or at least, he hopes to forget the very public fallout.

But South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris on Saturday made sure it was the first thing on voters’ minds as they filed into the polling booth in the marginal seat of Gilmore.

Dressed up as a Hawaiian shirt-wearing Morrison, Rorris brought the sounds of Honolulu to Nowra, ukulele and all.

Serenading voters, Rorris channelled his best ScoMo impression while joking how he had been late to the local booth, that: “It’s not a race”.

“How good’s Honolulu?” he asked supporters holding posters of the Prime Minister with the words ‘I don’t hold a hose’.

Arthur Rorris dressed up as a ukulele-strumming, Hawaiian shirt-wearing Scott Morrison.

Accompanied by a man mimicking a sunnies-wearing AFP agent, Rorris also led a group singalong to the tune of the iconic Dragon song “April Sun in Cuba”, but replacing the lyrics with “it’s time that he got the sack, it’s time that he goes today”.

It may have shifted votes — but which way?

WANNABE WESTIE

Perrottet government bomb-thrower David Elliott was keeping true to form while volunteering in Parramatta, reminding voters how Labor candidate Andrew Charlton was nothing more than a “wannabe westie”.

Dr Charlton, who is from Bellevue Hill, has copped flak about not being a true local since he was parachuted into the battleground seat by Labor following an impasse over candidates.

Early in the campaign he struggled at a “gotcha” question over what his favourite local eatery was before having to acknowledge he had screwed up his enrolment details.

ROAD RAGE

An explosive debate erupted in state parliament on Tuesday after L-plated Liberal frontbencher Tim James decided to foray into the federal sphere with a pre-election stab at Labor leader Anthony Albanese.

Opening up a “public interest debate”, the newly-minted Willoughby MP moved a motion to “note the failure” of federal Labor to release costings on its election promises.

Willoughby MP Tim James. Pictured: Sam Ruttyn

He justified the relevance of the motion, by adding that NSW residents needed to know the costings in order to figure out how it may impact them.

Swansea MP Yasmin Catley led the charge on behalf of her Labor colleagues against the motion, with a put-down about how newbie MPs are often given a bogus motion to push: “When a member is first in here, they are often given a punt.

“Mate, you have just been handed on,” Catley declared, while infuriating James even further by referring to him as the “member for Warringah”.

Despite James being backed in by members of his own side, Labor MPs dug in until their target exploded into a speech that left even Liberals open-mouthed.

Clearly frustrated at comments about his lack of parliamentary experience, James challenged Labor MPs to match his work and life experience.

“How many Opposition members have lived and worked in New York and London, as

I have?” James declared.

“How many Opposition members have worked for a prime minister? How many have a master of business administration? The answer is probably very few.”

DIGGING HOLES

Blame it on the drawn-out federal election preselection debacle, but Premier Dominic Perrottet appeared to have momentarily forgotten how things ended up with Holsworthy MP Melanie Gibbons last week.

During the party room meeting on Tuesday, Perrottet was telling MPs about what a great time he had had out in the field with “the member for Hughes, Melanie Gibbons”.

Premier Dominic Perrottet and Holsworthy MP Melanie Gibbons. Picture NCA Newswire/ Gaye Gerard

A party room source said the comment drew giggles, as Gibbons had tried to become the “member for Hughes”, only to learn that a special committee set up to resolve the dispute over candidates across key NSW seats had chosen another Liberal — Sutherland Shire lawyer Jenny Ware — as candidate.

Perrottet had been on the committee, along with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and former Liberal president Chris McDiven.

A key factor was Perrottet’s unwillingness to face yet another by-election in Gibbons’ state seat of Holsworthy, with Gibbons also now a frontrunner for a ministry.

Gibbons took the gaffe good-naturedly, while also noting how the pair had actually been out and about in the federal Labor-held seat of Fowler.

Perrottet quickly tried to explain how Hughes had been on his mind because he had been there with Heathcote MP Lee Evans, only to cop cries of “keep digging Dom”.

DEMOCARACY GRINDS ON

Sparks were flying early in the battleground seat of Parramatta on Saturday when a man turned up with an angle grinder to open up a polling booth.

Volunteers at the booth claimed the man took matters into his own hands when the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) could not locate a key to the locked gate.

A and his angle grinder to the rescue!

While another entrance to the booth was open around the corner, voters were still queuing up at the locked entrance as it had been the one that had been advertised on official material.

In a video sent to The Sauce, the man – wearing an “everything, everywhere, every time” T-shirt – shows him grinding the gate with sparks flying as volunteers stand and watch.

Parramatta was one of the most hotly contested seats in the nation with the Liberals fighting to prise the seat off Labor which is counting on millionaire businessman Dr Andrew Charlton in fending off the Coalition challenge.

An AEC spokeswoman confirmed the Commission was not involved in hiring the man.

“We can confirm we are aware of the reported use of an angle grinder to open a polling place,” she said.

“However, AEC staff were not involved in doing that.”

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Originally published as The Sauce: South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris strums up mischief