A phone to pick

AFTER Christopher Pyne likened dealing with Senate crossbenchers to “wading through molasses”, Day 2 hit a sticky patch.

IT was after Christopher Pyne likened dealing with Senate crossbenchers to “wading through molasses” that Day 2 of the Glorious Reset hit a sticky patch. This took the form of a fairly zesty message posted on the Facebook page of Palmer United Party senator Glenn “Brick with ire” Lazarus: “Christopher Pyne is embarrassing himself and needs to stop harassing me and other crossbenchers. I am being inundated with text messages from Christopher Pyne virtually begging me to support the Abbott government’s higher education reforms. I have never given Christopher Pyne my mobile phone number.” The Brick with Ire continued at some length in these almost Palmer-esque cadences. But do you think it’s straightforward at Pyne’s end of the line? Let us hop in the Strewth machine and travel back to 2011, when we talked with Cement Australia’s Chris Bryant, who’d accidentally inherited Pyne’s Howard government-era mobile number. As Bryant told Strewth at the time, “I get some unusual messages. I get ones from journalists that go on for six minutes telling me how fabulous I looked on Lateline. People are very understanding when I ring them back. Some are a bit embarrassed. It’s quite humorous; my boss has a chuckle.”

Et tu, Karl?

MEANWHILE, Tony Abbott got clubbed in an unexpected corner: by Karl Stefanovic on Channel 9’s Today. On the plus side — and we’re confident even the PM, with the gently healing passage of time, will come to appreciate this — the interview did yield one of the greatest uses of “with respect” in recent history. It was prompted by Abbott’s heartfelt wish “the Labor Party wasn’t in such a feral mood”. Said Stefanovic, “With respect, you were fairly feral in opposition, weren’t you? I mean the greatest respect by that, and isn’t (Bill Shorten) just doing what you did and why would he do anything different when it worked for you?” A hint as to how the rest of the interview went is contained in these two sentences that Abbott went on to use: “I want to stop you there” and “Well, Karl, I want to stop you there.” We imagine he did, but it was as futile as trying to stop Pyne. The interview drew to a close, the two wished each other well, then — like a man inquiring of the Almighty, “Where’s that smiting I asked for?” — the PM’s eyes rolled in unison towards the heavens.

Cars and effect

BACK in molasses territory, Motoring Enthusiast Party senator Ricky Muir was out admiring cars in an official capacity when he got trapped (on double white lines, no less) by a pack of journalists. For a quarter of an hour, they bombarded him with questions about higher education, and for quarter of an hour he refused to answer. It was, in its way, sort of a reverse Rob Oakeshott. We just hope Muir went to the Christmas drinks Universities Australia held in parliament yesterday evening. (Incidentally Oakeshott popped up on Twitter yesterday to jest about Abbott’s media chat on Monday: “How dare someone do a 45-minute press conference. What came from it? Remember, it only takes 17 minutes to form a government ... :)” Lest we forget.

Table turning

UNTROUBLED by the possibility of triggering a demarcation dispute, Tasmanian Liberal Andrew Nikolic stepped out of a Tassie-themed joint press conference with Andrew Wilkie, Jacqui Lambie, Bob Katter and others, and proceeded to lay a boot into Wilkie: “What did you do during six years under Labor and the Labor-Greens government? ... You are standing there now pontificating about freight equalisation and you did nothing in six years.” Nikolic’s explanation had a certain pizzazz: “You invited me to say some words, I’m here to say some words.” Wilkie, for his part, used a rare combination of words: “Show some respect for the media here.”

Smile for the cameras

OUR uberboss Rupert Murdoch’s younger days as a Sydney sailor were remembered at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia yesterday at the launch of Kevin Bourke’s Man of Iron, Ship of Steel. As former Strewth helmsman DD McNicoll explains, the Man of Iron was Vic Meyer, a Swiss-born yachtie who drove his steel-hulled sloop Solo to a shedload of race victories. Murdoch signed up to crew for Meyer aboard Solo in the 1963 Brisbane to Gladstone race, and was aboard when the yacht left Sydney for the trip north. At the time Murdoch was fighting with the federal government for the third commercial TV licence in Sydney. As Solo headed up the harbour, news choppers from Frank Packer’s Channel 9 and Warwick Fairfax’s Channel 7 hovered overhead, with the aim of getting footage of their young rival skiving off from the office.

Murdoch took the helm, smiling and waving at the cameramen. Whereupon Meyer’s voice boomed out: “Keep a f. king straight course, Rupert.”

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