Lockdown love

Rumour has it there’s a new power couple in Canberra— Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young and The Australia Institute’s executive director Ben Oquist.

Sarah Hanson-Young.

Rumour has it there’s a new power couple on the Canberra Bubble™ scene — Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young and The Australia Institute’s executive director Ben Oquist. Strewth understands the South Australian senator and Canberra-based think tanker have been dating for a while and are keen to keep their relationship off the radar. The lovers chose not to return our calls, texts and emails, but have been spotted recently in the corridors of power. There’s been a void of noteworthy political pairings on the annual round-up of the Canberra Bubble’s power couples. Following the departure of Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull and Peta Credlin and Brian Loughnane, plus the split of Anthony Albanese and Carmel Tebutt, we’ve been left with the front-page partnership of Barnaby Joyce and Vicki Campion, the wedding of Mark Butler and journalist Daniela Ritorto (attended by Albo and his new squeeze, Jodie Haydon), and the new coupling of Christian Porter with lawyer Karen Espiner. This latest match is one made in (non-denominational) heaven. Hanson-Young may only be 39 but with 14 years in parliament under her belt, she will soon become the longest-serving Greens member when Rachel Siewert retires in September. She has a teenage daughter, Kora, from her previous marriage to former local councillor Zane Young, and currently serves as the party’s spokeswoman on dental health, arts, media, communications, environment, water and tourism. Oquist also has a long history with the crossbenchers. He signed up to Bob Brown’s staff a year before the party won its first Senate seat at the 1996 election, and is credited by Brown as a “core factor in the Greens becoming the third-largest party in Australian politics”. Between serving as chief of staff and right-hand-man to Brown and his leadership successor Christine Milne, Oquist worked with the European Greens and was thrown out of a UN speech by US secretary of state Colin Powell for unfurling an environmental banner. After joining The Australia Institute, Oquist was responsible for Clive Palmer’s curt climate change conversion. Acting as an unpaid adviser on all things green, Oquist brokered a meeting between the mining magnate and former US vice-president Al Gore in 2014. Here’s hoping Oquist’s new relationship is more successful than Palmer’s one-term wonder.

Ben Oquist.

Riddling PM

Scott Morrison got us thinking with this riddle: “I’ve always been very clear that for the lockdown to work, the lockdown must work.” Is this the 2021 version of if you have a go, you get a go?

House of Reps

Here’s a way for the more than eight million New South Welshwomen and men to keep off the Covid kilos during Operation Stay At Home, all while staying up to date with the daily stats. The Gladys Workout links exercises with some of Gladys Berejiklian and Kerry Chant’s much-loved 11am catchphrases. For each utterance of “please know”, participants are required to do two burgees; “come forward”, equates to two push-ups; “I can’t stress enough” results in five star jumps; “jabs in arms” leads to three sit-ups; “get tested” is three squats; “restrictions” needs four crunches; and Berejiklian’s preferred crutch, “Can I just say”, calls for eight high knees. Participants get a quick breather and sip of water when the speaker switches but you have to drop down and plank during journalists’ questions. Strewth decided to road-test the workout on Sunday, when new cases hit 415. We counted five “please knows” (10 burgees); four “come forwards” (eight push-ups); two “I can’t stress enough” (10 star jumps); one “jabs in arms” (three sit-ups); two “get tested” (six squats); three “restrictions” (12 crunches); and seven statements of “Can I just say” (56 high kicks). No sweat!

Gladys Berejiklian.

Bring down the curtain

John Curtin.

The former Victorian home of Labor prime minister John Curtin has sold for more than its $1.3m asking price after two weeks on the market. Curtin lived at 16 Barry St in Brunswick during his early 20s from 1907 to 1909. Records show he played for the Brunswick Football Club in the Victorian Football Association about the same time. He moved to Western Australia in his 30s to edit the Westralian Worker, the official trade union newspaper, then won the seat of Fremantle in 1934. The Cottesloe residence of the wartime leader, in office from 1941 until his death in 1945, is heritage-listed. Agency Jellis Craig said a local couple bought the three-bedroom Brunswick home, with a Hawthorn brick facade, before it went to auction.

Counting crows

News for impatient poll pundits — the Australian Electoral Commission is looking for a company to take on electronic vote counting for the Senate … but not until 2024. “The AEC requires a solution to digitise all Senate ballot papers (i.e. capture the preferences and metadata) completed in a federal election,” tender documents say. “It is estimated this will be in the order of 16 million ballot papers for the 2021-22 event and will grow by 5-10 per cent for each federal electoral event after that.” It’s a tricky three-year challenge, given the ever-changing size and shape of the tablecloth ballots. As a guide, applicants have been told the paper will have a height of 195mm for a normal election or 300mm for a double dissolution, with a width between 400mm and 1018mm. Unfortunately, digitising the count won’t necessarily speed up the confirmation of seat winners. According to the AEC, the ballot papers won’t be available for scanning until the Tuesday after election day. Meanwhile, in our nation’s capital, a territory parliamentary committee wants to transform campaigning by banning corflutes. According to the ACT Greens, the 2020 local election was the second in which they shunned roadside electoral signage, and yet Canberrans elected a record number of their MLAs.

Zoom for one more

“Sadly, due to various states going in and out of lockdown across the country, we have decided the Melbourne launch of Buraadja: The Liberal Case for National Reconciliation will now be a virtual event,” Liberal senator Andrew Bragg informed his loyal readers. Josh Frydenberg will give the book an (e)christening on Wednesday from the ACT, where both he and Bragg are stuck in locky d. The Treasurer is the latest in a line of stars to launch the political tome, including director Rachel Perkins, SA Premier Steven Marshall, Indigenous Minister Ken Wyatt and NSW Premier Berejiklian.

[e-mail]