Call for the Bill

IF you weren’t gigantically keen on Clive Palmer and his posse, how would you go about gently teasing that out into the open?

IF, for the sake of argument, you weren’t gigantically keen on Clive Palmer and his posse, how would you go about gently teasing that out into the open? Tony Abbott and broadcaster Ray Hadley had a reasonable crack at it on 2GB yesterday:

RH: “It must be very strange that you have to be so courteous and so understanding of so many people as you negotiate your way through the minefield that is the new Senate ...”

PM: “Look, you have to interview all sorts of people, too, and I daresay there are some people who you interview who you wouldn’t sit down and have a cup of coffee with and you’ve got to interview them.”

Hadley suggested sending in Bill Heffernan to negotiate. “The ultimate diplomat” was how he described him, adding brightly: “Either that or he’d blow the joint up and you’d have nothing left to work with!”

Click baiting

SENATOR Eric Abetz is focused when it comes to trade union corruption. But now and then we forget how stunningly unwavering that focus is. And then he gives a little reminder. Yesterday, he tweeted a link about how “Electricity prices fall under Liberal Government in Tasmania”. But clicking on it got you this instead: “Royal Commission into trade union governance and corruption.” Sly but undeniably effective.

Celebrity iPad

THE story so far: our parent company, News Corp, has cracked it at the (alleged) story-lifting factory known as the Mail Online, accusing it of plagiarism*, and threatening to open a can of whoop-ass. The Mail folk have not been pleased, and this displeasure has boiled over at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where the Mail folk have had our colleague, media writer Darren Davidson, to vent their displeasure on. You may have read Davidson’s account yesterday of his argy-bargy with the Mail Online’s publisher Martin Clarke, who responded to Davidson’s requests for an interview by making off (temporarily) with Davidson’s iPad. Now iPad and owner are reunited, and people are approaching Davidson to take photos of him with his iPad. Perhaps this is one story the Mail will resist copying. (*Because we’re not all about criticism at Strewth, we note that the Mail at least managed an original slant on Iraq’s latest turmoil when it tweeted, “ISIS chief executioner winning hearts with his rugged looks”.)

Brain strainer

IN lieu of checking out the Citizens Electoral Council’s scrutiny of the British royal family’s plans to start World War III, we give you this: “The Australian Pastafarian Lobby is outraged, following news that a South Australian man was ordered by police to undergo psychiatric evaluation for wearing a colander on his head in his firearms licence photograph.”

Missed opportunity

BRITISH band Coldplay played Sydney’s Enmore Theatre on Thursday night. They got Kylie Minogue on stage to perform the old murder duet she did with Nick Cave, Where the Wild Roses Grow. Those hoping for the roles to be reversed, with Minogue as the killer and Coldplay singer Chris Martin as the cruelly butchered victim, were left bitterly disappointed.

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