Kiwi go again

Jacinda Ardern’s fiance Clarke Gayford served up home-made snack platters to hungry journos as they staked out the Prime Minister’s Auckland house on Saturday.

Alice Workman

4 min read

8:04PMOctober 18, 2020.

Updated 9:10PMOctober 18, 2020

NZ First Dude Clarke Gayford delivers home cooked food to the media waiting outside Jacinda Ardern’s house in Auckland.

Jacinda Ardern’s fiance Clarke Gayford served up home-made snack platters to hungry journos as they staked out the Prime Minister’s Auckland house on Saturday.

New Zealand’s first dude — who hosts TV show Fish of the Day — started the extremely wholesome tradition in 2017.

He also brought out sauce selections.

This year, he surprised with freshly grilled venison bites and fish sliders to the 20 or so media seagulls.

“I wasn’t actually going to do anything, but there were so many reminders this week to come and do this. And it was a good excuse to sneak out and go fishing,” Gayford said.

The venison was from a deer-hunting trip near Wellington and the fish from a catch with his father on Friday.

Catch of the day.

“There’s a relief we’re now at this place,” Gayford said of election day, which was delayed by the country’s August outbreak.

Luckily for the couple’s two-year-old daughter Neve — who Gayford said was “fighting bedtime” with both sets of grandparents — the Kiwi results came in quickly.

No ewe on offer.

Hit a snag

Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird … it’s a plane … it’s a democracy sausage arriving on your doorstop by drone. Palmerston District primary school teamed up with delivery company Wing Aviation after its ACT election day sausage sizzle fundraiser was COVID-cancelled.

They were made to order, voters paying $3 for a plain air sausage in bread, $3.50 with onion or $5 with a soft drink.

#democracysausage by drone? What a world we live in!

Thanks @wing! pic.twitter.com/BUiLllqSXx
— Graham Stock (@Mr_GStock) October 17, 2020

Unfortunately, the e-sausages were available in only four suburbs in Gungahlin (which incidentally saw a 10 per cent swing away from Andrew Barr’s re-elected Labor government, 4.5 per cent to the Liberals and 3.7 per cent to the Greens) on Saturday.

But we hear they arrived hot, in under five minutes.

My friends had an #ACTVotes2020 Party last night where you had to come as a Canberra icon. Someone came as @ABarrMLA. pic.twitter.com/y53PlbBIED
— Brent Ford (@BrentFord26) October 17, 2020

Karma’s gonna get you

“Immediately on receiving the news,” the Dalai Lama wrote to Ardern to offer her his congratulations.

“I admire the courage, wisdom and leadership you have shown in these challenging times,” his Holiness said.

Ardern on election night.

That’s less cutting-edge comedy than his 2009 press conference with Tony Abbott when the giggling Buddhist leader meditated on the Liberals’ climate change policy: “I admire democracy, I admire freedom of expression.”

The former prime minister retorted: “Thank you, your holiness. Well handled.”

Then mad monk Abbott added: “We’re happy to continue to accept refugees from Tibet, but I did encourage [the Dalai Lama] to suggest they not come by leaky boat”.

By comparison ... in 2016, The Monthly’s Richard Cooke described Kevin Rudd as “the Dalai Lama of a...holes”.

One with everything.

Silence of the LANs

Drop it like it’s hot(spot)!

It will be a technically heavy two weeks in federal parliament, with politicians and public servants discouraged from attending Senate estimates hearings in person unless they are “essential”. Instead, MPs will teleconference in.

The only catch?

The infamously terrible reception and connectivity in government offices. According to Senate president Scott Ryan, in answer to a question on notice in July, “the standard bandwidth allocated to an Electorate Office is 20Mbps.”

And “the bandwidth allocated to Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices is 100Mbps in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane, and 20Mbps for COPS in Hobart and Darwin”.

Just like Abbott, Strewth’s not a tech-head … but didn’t parliament pass laws that gave all Quiet Australians (in the city and outback) the right to a “decent” download speed of at least 25Mbps from July 1? It appears to apply to everyone … except federal pollies and staff.

Is that why the government quietly allocated $117.8m over four years in the budget to, among other things, “enhance video-conferencing capabilities”? Winternet is coming.

Game on

“Kids from the bush tell me because their speeds are so bad they keep getting beaten by gamers from overseas — Unacceptable,” Pauline Hanson tweeted on October 14, 2016.

Somebody stop me

Things are slowly getting back to business in the corridors of power.

The public, former pollies and lobbyists are still banned from the building and the ovals aren’t open for contact sports, but the Parliament House gym is resuming “instructor-led classes, supervised use of weights and other equipment, pool, squash courts and tennis courts”.

And politicians are allowed to go out to dinner. “When attending APH, parliamentarians and staff should avoid congregating in groups. Social gatherings are strongly discouraged,” the government’s official rules decree. The biggest Canberra Bubble™ pet peeve? PPE.

“While the wearing of face masks is not mandatory in the ACT, it is strongly recommended in those areas of the building where people circulate and where physical distancing is not possible, particularly by those at increased risk of COVID-19,” the advice says. Yet security guards and AFP officers — who, many pollies point out, arguably interact with the most people — don’t wear any face coverings.

I scream, you scream

Could there be a more 2020 sentence?

A Melbourne ice creamery is releasing a line of limited edition flavours inspired by COVID-19 lockdown.

Timboon Fine Ice Cream’s special creations include “The Karen from Briiiighton”, a bitter orange marmalade; “Same Same, but Sourdough”, vanilla with an oven-baked caramelised sourdough crumb; and “The Tipsy”, made with a Grampians Estate Shiraz reduction swirled through vanilla bean.

Timboon is a tiny town just inland from the Great Ocean Road, northwest of the 12 Apostles, with a population of fewer than 1000.

“Our ice cream is churned with milk directly from the neighbour’s farm, cream fresh from our local dairy, more local ingredients … and love. It’s what makes our ice-cream a true ice cream experience,” founder Tim Warwood said.

The new flavours coincide with Timboon Fine Ice Cream’s 21st birthday and will be on sale for just four weeks from Wednesday.

Timboon Fine Ice Cream founders Caroline Simmons and Tim Marwood.

It’s the vibe

Will the original Karen from Brighton — Jodi Grollo, daughter of billionaire pokes baron Bruce Mathieson, who found her 15 minutes of pandemic fame when she told Nine News she was “sick of walking the same streets” during the 5km travel ban — celebrate Daniel Andrews’easing of restrictions with a namesake lick?

Unlikely.

Grollo ditched Victoria and after quarantining for two weeks in the Northern Territory, was spotted on Sunday enjoying a coffee from a cafe in Nobby Beach, Queensland.