Strewth: All in a flap

Scott Morrison found time for a variation on the beloved broad church.

Late beats never

Yesterday, of course, was the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended what was optimistically thought of as the war to end all wars. The message didn’t reach quite everyone; certainly not German general Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck in what was then Northern Rhodesia. Unaware the guns had fallen silent in Europe, he and his troops encountered British soldiers on November 12, 1918, leading to the final military action of World War I. Unlike that Japanese soldier who kept fighting World War II on his own for decades after it wrapped up, this lasted only a few days — long enough for the so-called Lion of Africa and his army to conquer territory evacuated by the British. This Wednesday will mark the centenary of Lettow-Vorbeck reaching the Chambeshi River, where British magistrate Hector Croad came to him under a white flag with news of the armistice. And that was that. (As a small but zesty footnote, Adolf Hitler offered to send Lettow-Vorbeck to London in 1935 as his ambassador to the Court of St James. Decades later, US history author Charles Miller spoke with the nephew of one of Lettow-Vorbeck’s old officers about this and couched his query in terms of painstaking precision: “I understand von Lettow told Hitler to go f..k himself.” To which the nephew replied, “That’s right, except that I don’t think he put it that politely.”)

All in a flap

Returning now to a conflict of much smaller calibre, Scott Morrison was quizzed the other day by Mike Munro about the already well-sliced salami that was Malcolm Turnbull’s ABC Q&A appearance. Questions about Turnbull’s drubbing of several of his former ministers — as specific as Kevin Rudd might have been under the circumstances, but without the taste of lovingly cellared vengeance — were cheerfully let by the Prime Minister “through to the keeper”. But as for the broader question, it was time for a variation on the beloved broad church.

Munro: “No, but answer the question about the moderate Liberals being bullied by the conservative Right? You don’t think so?”

Morrison: “We’re a big party. John Howard used to talk about it as the big church, John used to talk about it as the big tent. Everybody is welcome in our tent, it doesn’t matter what your background is.”

Churches always seem safer in these situations, political tents being those structures with flaps through which yellow streams either enter or exit, depending on the position of the stream-maker.

Wooden horses

Morrison’s valiant stand was nothing if not a flashback to Turnbull when he appeared on Q&A opposite stand-in host Virginia Trioli, who wore leather as an amusing nod to Turnbull’s early appearances on the show. (At no point during this testy encounter did Turnbull make use of this and quip “You’ve got a hide.” Probably for the best.)

Following on from an audience question, Trioli tried to focus his mind.

Trioli: “The question takes you to the persistent and undermining nature of the conservative rump … in your party, and how difficult that’s been for you.”

Turnbull: “You know, if I had just lost attention for a minute and forgotten I was at the ABC, that question would’ve brought me right back to where I was.”

(There was Trioli, trying to tell him what was coming and what did she get for her troubles? Fobbed off like a Cassandra banging on about wooden horses.)

Trioli: “I don’t think the conservatives in your party are a figment of the imagination of the ABC.”

Turnbull: “Oh, no, but, you know … No. Well …”

Trioli: “And that seems to be a key part of what you have to deal with.”

Turnbull: “Well, it’s a broad church, Virginia.”

Trioli: “Yes, can I just take you back to the question, if I may?”

Turnbull: “We love everyone in the party.”

Skip ahead to the naming-and-shaming jamboree of Turnbull’s latest Q&A appearance: “I did not anticipate that people … particularly cabinet ministers, would act so self-destructively.” The past, as LP Hartley reminded us, is a foreign country.

Trained observer

Speaking of foreign countries, Coalition MP Jane Prentice is off to Fiji as the leader of the Australian team keeping an eye on the election. Prentice replaced an MP expelled from the LNP (albeit one who may have introduced the expression “root my boot” to the political lexicon) and went on to serve a nation beset by a procession of coups, then got knocked off herself in preselection. So she does seem particularly well qualified to look out for democratic anomalies.

[e-mail]