Bite club

Tony Abbott has been nominated for an AACTA Award! The former prime minister is one of 10 nominees in the ‘Favourite TV Moment of the Decade’ category.

Skin and all.

Tony Abbott has been nominated for an AACTA Award! The former prime minister is one of 10 nominees in the “Favourite TV Moment of the Decade”category at the 10th anniversary Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards on December 2. No, not for his Baywatch-style red speedo work but as the nation’s Onion Envoy. A panel of screen experts short-listed the moment Abbott hoed into one raw and unskinned in 2015 as mouth-watering TV. It certainly brought a tear to our eyes! “I was at a Tasmanian farm and the farmer, understandably, was incredibly proud of his produce,” Abbott explained later about his salad daze. “All of us eat raw onion occasionally. Salads are full of raw onion … I thought the least I can do with someone who was as proud of his product as he was, was to take a chomp and it was beautiful.” So nice, he did it twice! Up against the onion eater — Adam Goodes’s war cry dance (2015), Mick Fanning punching a shark (2015), an affair on Married At First Sight (2019), Dan and Steph winning My Kitchen Rules (2013), Nick “the Honey Badger” Cummins left alone at the altar on The Bachelor (2018), the Thailand cave rescue (2018), Patrick dying on Offspring (2013), the Freak buried alive on Wentworth (2018) and Josh finding his mother dead on Please Like Me (2017). If he wins, it will be another gong on the Team Abbott mantle, alongside Peta Credlin’s Logie and Walkley.

Know your onions

In other a-peeling news … Facebook thinks onions are too sexy for social media! A Canadian Seed Company’s ad featuring six sweet Walla Walla onions in and around a basket was blocked by Mark Zuckerberg & Co for being “sexually suggestive” and having “overtly sexualised positioning”. Store manager Jackson McLean figured out “something about the two round shapes” had triggered Facebook’s AI and mistakenly blocked the ad.

So we just got notified by Facebook that the photo used for our Walla Walla Onion seed is "Overtly Sexual" and therefore cannot be advertised to be sold on their platform... 😂 Can you see it?

Posted by The Seed Company by E.W. Gaze on Saturday, 3 October 2020

Sensitive soles

Move over Pollie Pedal, there’s a new spin cycle in town. Liberal MP Dave Sharma, Labor’s Andrew Leigh and Indi indie Helen Haines teamed up last week to launch the Parliamentary Friends of Cycling. All three will serve as co-chairs, with a little help from We Ride Australia’s Stephen Hodge. We’re told the group will “provide a nonpartisan forum” about the “benefits provided by the bicycle and active transport, its contribution to better health and mental health, improved community liveability and environment, increased transport options (including e-bikes, micromobility and new technologies) and economic development, opportunities in regional Australia through destination marketing built around bicycle facilities and cycle tourism”. The trio’s first event will be held in an upcoming sitting week and showcase the latest e-mobility trends. Fun fact: Sharma and Leigh are both members of a Canberra chain gang of “grind riders” called 3FIDI, who meet up for regular rides and coffee. Talk about a blister pack!

The Australian Parliament has a new forum for bringing bikes into the 'House', the Parliamentary Friends of Cycling group. Bikes have ridden the wave into Parliament, more here: https://t.co/dAs6SSacle pic.twitter.com/CDuv3cr5z6

— We Ride Australia (@WeRideAustralia) October 8, 2020

Bragging rights

NSW Liberal senator Andrew Bragg has coined a new nickname for shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers: “Tweedle Dee.” During a speech to the Senate last week, Bragg noted the Labor leader-in-waiting’s book Glory Daze “has sold about 713 copies over the last seven years, which is about 100 copies a year”. The first term Liberal was recently accused by the Nine papers of selling just 34 copies of his super(annuation) tome following its release in May. Bragg informed the upper house: “(Labor frontbencher Stephen) Jones has also said recently that there are 113 members of the Coalition partyroom and it appears most of them aren’t interested in Andrew Bragg’s plan to destroy superannuation. The good news for him is that the publishers inform me that we’ve sold 779 copies of Bad Egg: How To Fix Super.”

Killing season

News from the Parliament House apiary. Two native beehives will return to the Canberra Bubble™ on Monday. Specifically, Speaker Tony Smith’s courtyards. “As the bees are stingless, they will not pose a risk to people near the hives,” the Department of Parliamentary Services assured in an all-staff email, in case anyone had residual My Girl fears. Each winter, the beehives are relocated to Government House in Sydney and return to Canberra for the warmer months. The deal was struck when amateur beekeeper Governor-General David Hurley was governor of NSW. He set up eight hives that produce “Isabelle honey”, named after the ship that brought the European honey bee to Australia in 1822, sold for charity. Parliament House also sells its harvest as honey, honey mead and honey vodka in the gift shop. And with the temperature on the rise, it’s nearly time to replace the queens. Very on-brand, it turns out the parliament bees are shockingly good at regicide, overthrowing three queens in their first year in 2017. Ironically, that was one of the only years in recent history where a leader wasn’t deposed inside the building.

The @Aust_Parliament native stingless bees enjoying their last bit of foraging in Sydney before starting their return journey. The @HiveHaven boxes have worked beautifully! pic.twitter.com/ybrZF9Fgwt

— Cormac Farrell (@jagungal1) September 25, 2020

He’s a pacifisht

We’ve previously touched on the specific set design statues for pollies Skyping into federal parliament — only blank white walls or Hansard book backgrounds allowed … a rule accidentally broken by Labor MP Peter Khalil last week when his daughter quietly slipped into his office mid-speech and started silently drawing on the whiteboard behind him. He copped a cranky call from Speaker Smith’s office. Hence why Strewth felt we must doff our cap to the Canadian House of Commons, which has instituted virtual attendance … without backdrop control. Cut to Scot Davidson delivering a speech in a jacket, tie and hip waders while knee deep in a pond. The Conservative MP was calling on his chums in Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government for help to clean Lake Simcoe. Surely a snappy stunt more suited to Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon!Notfishstanding, we wonder if they sus-ponded standing orders.

#CPC MP ⁦@ScotDavidsonMP⁩ delivers an #so31 to the #HOC wearing a jacket, tie - and hip waders knee deep in a pond - asking for govt help to clean Lake Simcoe. That’s a first! pic.twitter.com/tZyrI1sHBx

— David Akin 🇨🇦 (@davidakin) October 6, 2020

Sheep thrills

Spotted buried in the Budget papers: “From 11 January 2021, the government will update the definition of lamb used for agriculture levies purposes”. From what to what? A bovine boffin at the Department of Agriculture informed us the law currently states that lamb “means a sheep that has not cut a permanent incisor tooth”. The Morrison government plans to amend this to “an ovine animal under 12 months of age; or with no permanent incisor teeth in wear”. When the bill passes, will they unveil a little plaque?

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