Love will chair us apart
Trade Minister Dan Tehan congratulates his former UK counterpart Liz Truss regarding her promotion to Foreign Secretary. Fans of furniture diplomacy may recall the two have a chequered history.
Should we read sarcasm between the lines of this confab about Boris Johnson’s reshuffle? Trade Minister Dan Tehan tweeted best wishes to his former UK counterpart Liz Truss, who walked out of 10 Downing St on Thursday with a promotion to Foreign Secretary. Fans of furniture diplomacy may recall that Truss was forced to call and apologise in April after her allies told the British press she’d insulted the “glacially slow” Tehan as “inexperienced” and planned to seat him in an “uncomfortable chair” during their 48-hour trade talks. In a career-making move, Britain’s top diplomat in Canberra, Vicki Treadell, was rolled out to deny that the Foreign Office’s chairs were uncomfortable. Truss then surprised Tehan with a present as he was leaving London – a Union Jack teapot from the London Pottery Company, which he regularly uses for a post-question time ginger and lemon sip. What better way to repay the smells like tea spirit than a sugary sweet tweet? “Congratulations to my good friend @trussliz on her appointment as Foreign Secretary. The important work we have done together on our FTA shows her commitment to trade liberalisation,” Tehan wrote, adding a salutation to incoming Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan. Two days later, Truss responded: “Thanks so much Dan. It‘s been great working with you on our first from scratch post-Brexit FTA.” Truss is considered a dark horse candidate to replace BoJo as prime minister and her top dog status has only been helped along by her nickname “patriotic trade supremo” for wooing politicians with bespoke Scotch whisky and Stilton cheese. Tehan had planned to treat Truss to a drop of Victoria’s Casterton rhubarb and ginger gin when the FTA was finally signed, but has informed Strewth he will now be taking two bottles – one for Truss and one for Trevelyan. Tehan and Trevelyan have already spoken over the phone, and we’re reliably informed there was no chair-raising chat. Given the hot water Australia’s relationship with France and China is in, it’s nice to know we can still lie back and think of England.
Same love
LNP frontbencher Jarrod Bleijie has a secret side hustle, moonlighting as a marriage celebrant. He was officiating his first same-sex wedding on Saturday, marrying former Young Liberal president Nelson Savanh and partner Zack Kennie … a tad ironic, given that Bleijie was Campbell Newman’s attorney-general and abolished civil partnerships in 2012. The blue ribbon invitation list to the Sunshine Coast nuptials included senator James McGrath, state MP Andrew Powell, councillor Ryan Murphy and 4BC shock jock Scott Emmerson. During the ceremony, the couple played a choral arrangement of Malcolm Turnbull’s 2017 speech on the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill by The Australian Voices called Marital Drama. Composed by Gordon Hamilton, its lyrics include: “If consulted by friends about marital drama I always encourage the single to marry, the married to stick together, and the wronged to forgive. I am utterly unpersuaded by the proposition that my marriage to Lucy or indeed any marriage is undermined by two lesbians setting up house down the road.” How romantic! Bleijie also MCed the wedding reception at Spicers Clovelly Estate where, we hear, he cracked out his hip-swivelling moves on the dance floor. A committed jive dancer, the 39-year-old gave quite the Elvis impersonation at former LNP leader Deb Frecklington’s 50th birthday party three weeks ago. Footage of his Blue Suede Shoes karaoke performance was helpfully posted on the Facebook page of Ben’s Vietnamese & Chinese restaurant.
Turn down for what
Superannuation Minister Jane Hume was singing the praises of David Southwick on Sunday, the newly anointed deputy to returned Victorian Liberal leader Matthew Guy. “Southwick is a terrific MP and a profoundly kindhearted fellow. And he does alright on the decks,” Hume commented on Facebook. Turns out “DJ Dave” is well known on the bar and bat mitzvah circuit in Melbourne, when he used to spin tunes in the 1990s. An ABC profile from 2010, when Southwick won the seat of Caulfield, noted he “became a business entrepreneur at a young age, just 18 when he established a DJ business to pay his own way through university’’. When asked by The Australian Jewish News whether we would ever see the return of the sound and light shows (with added dance demonstrations) that DJ Dave was known for, the 53-year-old quoted Justin Bieber:“Never say never.”
Travellin’ soldier
As Strewth foreshadowed last week, retired Special Forces commander Heston Russell has submitted the AEC paperwork for his new political organisation – the Australian Values Party. Heston plans to use a process similar to the SAS to select, train and test his candidates for the next federal election. “Leadership, management, planning, communication, emotional intelligence and lived experience will be some of the critical attributes each candidate will be required to demonstrate and continue to develop,” he explained. “Because being elected into parliament is only the start of the journey.”
From little things
The first residents moved into Whitlam this weekend, the ACT’s newest suburb named after former prime minister Gough Whitlam. It’s a 15-minute drive west of Telstra Tower, in the Molonglo Valley. When Whitlam is completed in 2025, it will house about 5000 residents. “Many Canberra suburbs have been named for former prime ministers. What makes it particularly interesting in (Gough’s) case is that he is, in fact, the only prime minister who was really raised in Canberra,” his son Tony Whitlam said. The new suburb coincides with a move by assistant minister Ben Moreton to preserve past prime ministers’ homes after a Melbourne home of Robert Menzies was destroyed by a wrecking ball in early September. John Howard’s childhood home is now a KFC, Paul Keating’s was demolished for units and Scott Morrison’s gutted for a luxury duplex. The federal government stumped up $1.3m in June to purchase and restore Gough and Margaret’s modest family home in southwest Sydney. The Whitlam Institute hopes to open the four-bedroom home at 32 Albert Street, Cabramatta, in Sydney’s west – which the Whitlams owned in 1956-78 – to the public next year, on the 50th anniversary of the Whitlam government’s election.
strewth@theaustralian.com.au
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