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Mark McGowan’s wild wild West

WA’s Labor’s digital director Henny Smith emailed supporters calling for donations to help in ‘levelling the playing field’.

Alice Workman
Marky Mark and the level playing field.
Marky Mark and the level playing field.
5 min read
9:26PMDecember 02, 2020.
Updated 10:30PMDecember 02, 2020

Showing Kevin Rudd-levels of baseless obsession and paranoia, Western Australia’s Labor’s digital director Henny Smith emailed supporters calling for donations to help in “levelling the playing field”.

Exactly what Smith — the former “impact director” for GetUp! — meant is unclear, given the red team leads the blue on every discernible measure in WA. Labor is miles ahead in the polls and the chamber (40 seats to the Liberals’ 13). Also, financially.

The Libs were already feeling the squeeze before arguably their strongest local fundraiser, Dean Nalder, announced his resignation last month, after pulling out of the leadership race.

Labor’s quokka quibble appears to have been stoked by the local coverage in Kerry Stokes’ The West Australian of new Liberal leader Zak Kirkup (who just so happens to be dating the paper’s deputy editor Jenna Clarke).

After securing the leadership unopposed last week, the 33-year-old was portrayed on the front page as the ‘boy wonder’ Robin (not Batman) — surely the least super of all superheroes.

The West also had the temerity to run not one but two front-page stories about Kirkup since then. For the last four years the Liberals have moaned over what they perceive is the cosy treatment of Labor.

And we’re sure those heads would have started spinning around like Kylie Minogue when Labor’s missive started doing the rounds.

“It’s clear that it’s going to be harder than ever for Mark McGowan and WA Labor to get our message out. Can you help us level the playing field?” Smith wails in the email.

We would love to know her thoughts, then, on the multitude of fawning front pages devoted to McGowan in recent months.

Such as! The portrayal of the premier as a musclebound “Captain Westralia” and Treasurer Ben Wyatt as “Iron Ore Man”. Plus the outright cheerleading of the government’s hard border win against Clive Palmer — “Anything Clive Can Do, Mark Can Do Better”.

A nation changed?

Politicians – they’re just like us!

Baby Boomer Julia Gillard was again befuddled by Zoom while recording Kurt Fearnley’s new podcast A Nation Changed.

“Now, given you’re recording this and something’s just gone, ding! I’m just going to,” the former prime minister muddled. “And there’s another thing that’s just gone, ding! I’m just going to mute … oops hang on. (Pause) There we go, done.”

Zoom for one more?
Zoom for one more?

Tech gaffes aside, the four half-hour episodes launched on Thursday offer a fascinating insight behind the scenes of the NDIS.

The agency’s first chief executive David Bowen addresses its chaotic launch seven years ago.

“The (Labor) government went a year early because they had an election in September 2013 and they were not confident that if it wasn’t started before then, that it wouldn’t be put on hold by an incoming government,” Bowen said. “I think that was a reasonable apprehension for them to have.”

One of the most moving moments comes when WA Greens senator Jordon Steele-John shares his anger about how a lack of support can lead to premature deaths.

“I find that actually, really, as you can maybe hear in my voice, really quite personally distressing to hear,” Steele-John revealed. “We deserve as disabled people so much better than that.”

Chain reaction

Who has the fastest legs in the Canberra Bubble™?

The political spin kicked off at 6.30am on Wednesday, as cyclists gathered for The Red Hill Rampage. Yes. The majority of participants? MAMILS — middle-aged men in Lycra.

On yer bike.
On yer bike.

Organised by former pro Stephen Hodge, the 25 riders were fitted with a chip to time their 1.54km climb and Dr Brendan Murphy was on hand to wave the starting flag.

Liberal MP Dave Sharma was the fastest pollie across the finish line with a time of 4mins and 50.02sec, followed by Energy Minister Angus Taylor (5:19.16), Liberal Andrew Laming (6:06.51), former AFP boss Andrew Colvin (6:47.14) then Liberals Andrew Hastie (6:50.22) and Andrew Wallace (7:08.43).

Dr Brendan Murphy watches Liberal MP Dave Sharma’s time trial.
Dr Brendan Murphy watches Liberal MP Dave Sharma’s time trial.

65-year-old cycologist Kevin Andrews clocked up a very respectable 7mins 28.03 secs, with Nats Dr David Gillespie (8:20.38), Labor’s Mark Dreyfus (8:42.40) and Liberal Bert van Manen (9:21.72) bringing up the biking rear.

Le Tour de France it ain’t!

But wheelie cool fans can rest easy with the knowledge Taylor is planning a full COVID-safe Pollie Pedal for 2021, pending a federal poll. That is, if they’re not two tired.

Also! Strewth’s belated congrats to Labor’s Dr Andrew Leigh for winning Canberra’s Bush Capital marathon on Sunday — for the third time.

I wanna hold your ham

“How good is Christmas ham?” Karen Andrews said as she literally hammed it up for the cameras while placing a leg of ham on a Canberra butcher’s scale.

T he Industry Minister is deploying secret shoppers from the National Measurement Institute to audit 450 supermarkets and protein providers.

 “Whether it’s a ham or turkey, cherries or chicken, seafood or sausages; if you’ve paid for a kilo, you expect to receive a full kilo,” Andrews promised. “Our inspectors will not only be checking that scales are working properly but also ensuring pre-packaged goods are correctly labelled and contain the right amount of product.”

 The Council of Small Business chief executive Peter Strong offered this tongue-in-cheek assurance to doubters: “Pork barrelling … not here.”

Heavy is the head

December 2 is a significant date on the Labor calendar.

In 1972 Gough Whitlam became PM, in 1989 Wayne Goss QLD Premier and 2003 Mark Latham Labor leader. “A day to celebrate Gough and Wayne as Labor heroes and whatever happened to Mark Latham anyway,” senator Anthony Chisholm noted.

Thursday (December 3) marks a decade since Daniel Andrews won Victorian Labor leader and Friday is six years since he took over as premier. The milestone makes him the third longest serving Victorian Labor Leader, behind John Cain Sr (1937-1957) and Clyde Holding (1967-1977).

If Andrews says in the job until the 2022 election, as he’s previously promised, he’ll take the crown of longest serving Labor Premier from Steve Bracks (1999-2007).

Gladys Berejiklian will also take a spot in history next month, when she notches up four year in the top job, as New South Wales’ second longest serving Liberal Premier after Robert Askin (1965-1975).

That’s all she wrote

And so it came to pass that on the 48th anniversary of the Whitlam government’s election, Mungo MacCallum decided to hang up his press hat.

“I am sorry to cut and run — it has sometimes been a hairy career, but I hope a productive one and always fun. My gratitude for all your participation,” the 78-year-old wrote in his final blog post.

Longtime readers may recall the veteran journalist was accidentally killed off by Anne Summersback in 2014, prompting an outpouring of grief (and perhaps something much stronger).

The vortex of mourning was quickly put to rest by MacCallum’s partner Jenny Garrett who declared: “Look, it’s absolute bullshit. He’s sitting beside me at the Poinciana cafe in Mullumbimby. He’s wading through some scrambled eggs and he’s perfectly all right. He’s rather alarmed at this. As one of the friends sitting with us here said, You could lie low and see what the obits are like. It’s greatly exaggerated is the way the classics would talk about it.”

MacCallum’s colourful contributions to Australian politics will be sorely missed.

One of Strewth’s preferred tales of paralytic pollies was oft told by MacCallum, about a young journalist encountering Lionel Murphy and John Kerr teetering on the steps of Old Parliament House after a long lunch.

The journo rushed to help them down only to have Murphy turn on him, furious as he bellowed: “We were trying to get up the steps, you stupid c …!”

Sir John.
Sir John.

strewth@theaustralian.com.au

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/strewth/mark-mcgoawns-wild-wild-west/news-story/7a72a1fb8bd4d21e90499bd90aa44137