Careful words
IT’S quite an accomplishment to make Pauline Hanson look measured and calm, but Clive Palmer and Jacqui Lambie have managed it.
IT’S quite an accomplishment to make Pauline Hanson look measured and calm, but that’s what Clive Palmer and Jacqui Lambie managed to achieve in 12 hours from Monday night to yesterday morning. As the dust began to slowly settle, Joe Hockey was the first high-calibre cabinet member asked for his reaction. It was fascinating to hear the Treasurer’s new form of words as he spoke to Geelong radio about dealing with the Senate: “We have always said that we’ve prepared to negotiate with sensible people ...”
Bring it on
LAMBIE’S invitation to the People’s Liberation Army — “Come and have a go if you’re hard enough” — was spectacular. But it was her description of Palmer United policymaking that was truly thought-provoking. “We just sit around the table and we discuss the best way forward, and all our ideas are taken into account, not just Clive’s — even though Clive is the leader,” she told the ABC. “All those ideas are thrown in; the best ones are picked up on the table, the most logical and the best economic ideas that are put on the table, are picked up and that’s how we operate.” Yes, but what else is on the table? Angry pills? Raw meat? Strong waters?
Sense of direction
IT is a little-known fact the Australian taxi industry exists solely to prove the truth of Adam Smith’s maxim: that “people of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public”. After all, it’s pretty bloody useless at getting you from A to B. As was proved yesterday in Victoria. In the space of 24 hours the dead posh Conde Nast Traveller magazine declared Melbourne to be the world’s friendliest city, the upper-middlebrow Economist Intelligence Unit gave it perfect marks for healthcare, education, sport and infrastructure and awarded it the title of the world’s most livable city — and every other outlet roared with laughter that only one of the 234 would-be cabbies to sit the new London-style “knowledge” test has passed.
Rove no more
TECHNOLOGY has finally rendered obsolete all those maudlin folk songs where Erin’s sons and daughters mourn their exile from the Emerald Isle’s shores. That global jamboree of Oirishness, the Rose of Tralee Festival, has just wrapped up — after being lovingly webstreamed by the Irish national broadcaster Raidio Teilifís Eireann.
With friends like this ...
A STRING of state elections along the length of the east coast gets under way in November when Victorians go to the polls. Liberal Premier Denis Napthine has just won support from an unlikely source — Malcolm Fraser. “I think the state government deserves a second term,” the former prime minister told the Warnambool Standard. “I wish Denis Napthine well. I think he’s a battler, I think he’s sincere and I believe he’s a good advocate for the people of Victoria.” Napthine’s electorate covers the same turf Fraser once served as the member for Wannon. The two men first met when the young vet Napthine visited Fraser’s old property, Nareen. How the endorsement goes down with the fabulously fractious factions of the Victorian Liberal Party remains to be seen. After all, the last politician to win Fraser’s endorsement was Sarah Hanson-Young.
Trifecta in sight
SPOOKY. Iguana Joe’s, the Gosford eatery that provided the backdrop for the alleged “Don’t you know who I am” outburst from former Labor MP Belinda Neal, is set to reopen after lying empty and idle for five years — at the same time reports are seeping out of the NSW central coast that she is weighing a return to politics. The news about the restaurant comes from the local paper. The news about Neal comes from the ABC. The reopening of the restaurant seems more of a cert. But there’s no reason Neal shouldn’t line up for preselection again. She and hubby John Della Bosca were once one of the power couples of the NSW Right. Neal served a stint in the Senate before quitting in 1998 to take a tilt at the local reps seat of Robertson. She finally won it with the election of the Kevin Rudd government in 2007, only to fall victim to Iguanagate. But why not have a go at a state seat and set some sort of record?
Lowering the bar
AFTER eight increasingly overwrought and underedited books, one might have thought Harry Potter creator JK Rowling’s ego and accountant were both satisfied. But no. She’s back, this time with a song from a character mentioned only en passant in her tedious tomes, singing sorceress Celestina Warbeck. “I always imagined her to resemble Shirley Bassey in both looks and style,” Rowling witters. Time for a disappearing spell, sez Strewth.
strewth@theaustralian.com.au