Enter Barnaby

IT was good to see the spirit alive and well at federal parliament yesterday.

The Minister for Agriculture Barnaby Joyce photo bombed his mate Senator Nick Xenophon while he was doing an interview. Picture: Gary Ramage

“HE who controls the medium controls the message” is one of those quotes we simply can’t attribute without coming across as historically unsavoury. Nevertheless, it was good to see the spirit alive and well at federal parliament yesterday. Independent senator Nick Xenophon (the nation’s most trusted pollie, according to a Reader’s Digest poll) was chatting to a TV camera for a remote interview with Today Tonight’s Rosanna Mangiarelli. Sensing opportunity, passer-by Barnaby Joyce triumphed over his innate shyness, jumped in, knocked a laughing Xenophon out of the way and hijacked the interview. (The moment is captured here by our colleague Gary Ramage . “This is what happens when you have a photographer who specialises in war zones,” Xenophon observed to Strewth.) We’re not sure what Mangiarelli said in the TT studio in Adelaide, but Joyce thinks he may be on to something. “I’m practising new methods of working with balance-of-power senators,” he told Strewth. (Ricky Muir may welcome such an intervention next time he gets Willesseed.) Joyce is “reviewing this approach for further refinements”.

That loving filling

CAFFEINE withdrawal does no wonders for one’s powers of concentration. Exhibit A: Yesterday, when in dire need of a double espresso, we had a stab at reading the latest Oz-sledging from The Australian Financial Review’s Joe Aston, who, bless him, seems to spend as much time thinking about The Australian as Clive Palmer does. But we were barely a couple of lines in when our mind inexplicably segued to taxidermy and that most timeless of questions: can one have a human being stuffed? Possessing zero knowledge in this area, we turned to award-winning taxidermist Sascha Smith. “I was asked this only a few days ago,” he told Strewth. “I receive a few calls a year wanting tattooed skin done up as a handbag, wall hanging or good old Indian dream catcher. Other times, I am asked to quote full-body taxidermy requests. Deceased relatives, and so on. I gather it is legal to donate your skin as this is classified as ‘organ donation.’ ” But the prospect of the whole box and dice is something Smith finds creepy. “I don’t handle people in my studio, and don’t know anyone who would!” We may well have fallen into ruinous despair at this point, but as luck would have it, our double espresso arrived.

Playground blues

SO at least you now know why “Get stuffed” isn’t really much of an imperative these days. This is presumably why Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek instead opted to merely describe Health Minister Peter Dutton as “inappropriate” after he called out “Take your medication”. Some credit is at least due to Dutton for choosing a portfolio-appropriate sledge. We’re not sure where Plibersek’s similarly cruel and insensitive insertion of “Nigel No-friends” into the national discourse fits.

Thy neighbour’s gaffe

MANY became excited when Tony “There are no broken promises” Abbott went to Ottawa and said “Canadia”. This was only a Wheel of Fortune moment that had him buying a vowel. Not so India’s newly elected Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who has addressed Bhutan’s parliament and accidentally called the country “Nepal”.

At loggerheads

SO there we were yesterday, imploring someone — anyone — to rescue the Greens from their sad and bidless state in the federal parliamentary press gallery Midwinter Ball charity auction. While people (modestly) clamoured on eBay to spend a few grand for charity and score dinner with some of our leading political lights, the prospect of a feed with Christine Milne, Adam Bandt and Scott Ludlam was as popular as cordial on the day Prohibition ended. Until yesterday, when the Australian Forest Products Association broke the bid drought. AFPA chief Ross Hampton declared: “I hope we are successful because there is a great deal to talk about.” Replied Milne: “I’d look forward to having a detailed conversation about the transition out of native forests, the failure of forestry managed investment schemes and the need to develop and promote new and sustainable plantation timber products. I’m also looking forward to bids from the Minerals Council, the IPA and Rupert Murdoch.”

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