Maple syrup

TONY “Je m’appelle Antoine” Abbott clearly has no trouble with the language of love.

TONY “Je m’appelle Antoine” Abbott may have been knocked for trying out his French on some schoolkids the other day — hardly the first foreigner to be chipped for trying French — but he clearly has no trouble with the language of love. Behold this declaration to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and try telling yourself it doesn’t leave Clive Palmer’s Man of Love poem for dead: “I should also say to you, Stephen, how much of a guide you have been to centre-right political parties and to centre-right political leaders over the last eight years or so. I cherish our first meeting back in late 2005 … you certainly impressed me on that day and you’ve impressed not only Canadians but a generally admiring world in the months and years since that time. I’m happy to call you an exemplar of centre-right leadership ... much for me to learn, from the work you’ve done. … let me just say again how much I’ve enjoyed working with you. I look forward to a continued strong partnership.

I look forward to us being able, together, as countries and perhaps as leaders, to provide good counsel, good example and from time to time, some inspiration for the wider world.” No stone unturned. Harper, for his part, extended his affections: “Let me also take this opportunity to commend you, Prime Minister, and also your Treasurer, Joe Hockey — now that’s a great name, isn’t it? Are you sure he isn’t Canadian with a name like that?” Perhaps anticipating things wouldn’t be quite so cosy south of the border, the transcriber in Abbott’s office dutifully misspelt Barack Obama.

A more subtle affection

IN Melbourne, love was limited to delaying a vote on whether to expel rogue state MP Geoff Shaw, or merely suspend him. Either way, an anticlimax for those expecting him to be loaded into a cannon and fired into the sun.

Devil in the fine print

NSW Opposition Leader John Robertson may want to give some thought to reading newspaper articles before he endorses them on Twitter. He plugged the editorial in yesterday’s issue of Tamworth’s Northern Daily Leader. Headlined “People’s power in referendum”, it does give the state Coalition government a bit of a touch-up over electricity privatisation. But then it says this: “This government, coming on the back of 16 years of rule from the worst government in NSW history, was always going to win a second term. A Coalition election win in 2015 would be more of a continued repudiation of state Labor than an endorsement for any policy the government takes to the polls.” Perhaps even Robbo is trying to put distance between himself and the government that counted him as a member.

Release the hounds

THE story so far. Last week, Strewth mentioned that Black Inc’s collection of Paul Keating quotes wrongly credited PJK with Gareth Evans’s famous directive to Bob Hawke: “Pull out digger, the dogs are pissing on your swag.” We thought of this as an Evans original, but reader Paul Nicholls alerted to us its first known appearance, as recorded by John Pringle in Australian Accent (1958): “On one occasion a Liberal minister, noted for his long and boring speeches, had been on his feet for many minutes when a Liberal whip was seen to scribble something on a sheet of paper …” That something was the swag-irrigation message. Nicholls suggested this whip may have been wag and wit Bernard Henry Corser. An excellent try. Now GA Wilkes, author of Stunned Mullets & Two-pot Screamers — A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms, has come to the rescue. The whip was Allan MacDonald, and the recipient the member for Wentworth, Eric Harrison. It was recorded by Howard Beale, Menzies government minister and later ambassador to Washington, in his 1977 memoir, This Inch of Time: “Harrison, a good fighting speaker, was denouncing the government ... When his speech — a little heavy-handed — had gone on for some time, I saw Allan MacDonald, the opposition whip who sat next to me, scribble something on a piece of paper and bustle down the aisle and hand it to Harrison … Harrison took the paper gratefully and read it. Then he threw it down on the table, completed his speech in one sentence, and sat down abruptly.” Message received.

One more rebound

VALE Rik Mayall. We knew him by so many names — Rick, Alan B’stard, Lord Flashheart, Richie — all of them triggers for separate, happy memories. Now that he is gone, we are left with one small hope: he’s done this before. Technically dead for five days after a quad bike accident, Mayall defied expectations and came back. As he merrily noted, “I beat our Lord Jesus 5-3.”

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