Hello, world of pain

Mathias Cormann’s glitch over an overseas trip aroused, ooh, one or two questions.

It’s hard to hear the words “hello world” without it transforming into John Laws’s molasses-coated greeting to his audience, via his golden microphone. And once you’re thinking about Lawsie, your brain might drift to that time when, booze in hand, his interview by 7.30 host Leigh Sales ended on a memorable upbeat.

Laws: “Did you enjoy it?”

Sales: “I did enjoy it. Did you?”

Laws (chuckling): “Yeah, I loved every minute.”

John Laws.

Mathias Cormann and the nine circles of hello. Picture Kym Smith

If only Mathias Cormann had felt the same way in his frolic with travel firm Helloworld yesterday. It was a situation many of us have surely found ourselves in: trip accidentally paid for by travel company that’s received solid contracts from the government and whose chief executive is a mate and party donor who does the booking for you. Nevertheless, this glitch by the Finance Minister aroused, ooh, one or two questions yesterday. Poor old Cormann, the very portrait of a man still recovering from his implosion last August, told Labor’s Penny Wong in heartfelt tones: “There was a stuff-up, which was embarrassing.”

Just pleased to see us?

Sticking with travel, senator Barry O’Sullivan has again delivered the sort of gem to Senate Estimates that reminds us what we’ll be missing when he bows out from the upper house: “There’s a bigger chance of us having a biosecurity breach from some bloody old Chinaman that brings in his favourite sausage down the front of his undies.” It is here that Strewth must confess our grandmother got pinged at Sydney airport back in 1980 when she arrived with rather a lot of salami in her suitcase. She was barely half as tall as the very cross quarantine officer who eventually escorted her out, but her sheepish look — the only time we ever saw such an expression crease her features — was so perfect that it still gives us the giggles. That said, she never put it in her undies. As she told us, she wasn’t an animal.

Questionless time

Yet another self-contained press conference from Labor, in this case Kristina Keneally: “Peter Dutton does not have control of the Home Affairs portfolio. He is not across the detail, and his reckless actions in this portfolio risk Australians and our security. Happy to take any questions. Terrific. Thank you all.”

No blurting zone

If loose lips sink ships, the entire fleet stayed safely afloat around Scott Morrison yesterday as the Prime Minister spoke with 3AW’s Neil Mitchell.

Mitchell: “This cyberattack … Can you rule out China as the main suspect?”

ScoMo: “Well, I’m not commenting on where it might come from … We’re not in any position to attribute that to any particular nation.”

Mitchell: “So we don’t know who did it.”

ScoMo: “We’re not in a position to do that.”

Mitchell: “Sorry, but do you know who did it or not?”

ScoMo: “No, what I’m saying is you don’t go and make those claims wildly … I don’t have any information that would enable me to make that claim.”

Mitchell: “So you don’t know who did it?”

ScoMo: “I’ve said what I’ve said, Neil. That’s a very specific wording I’ve used.”

On it went, Mitchell calmly pushing, the PM calmly resisting.

Mitchell: “Well, clearly you’ve got suspicions.”

ScoMo: “Well, it’s not up to me to have suspicions and share them. It’s up to me to speak to the facts as we know them and what we can be very confident of.”

Mitchell: “Can you give us a list of likely suspects?”

ScoMo: “No.”

The PM’s effort regarding Cormann was briefer, but arguably just as solid.

Mitchell: “It is not a good look …”

ScoMo: “Well, that’s why he’s cleaned it up.”

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