New balls, please, Josh Frydenberg

Josh Frydenberg sent his apologies to his social tennis team on Thursday. The Treasurer had a legitimate excuse — he was on the phone to Mark Zuckerberg.

It was the 80s!

Josh Frydenberg sent his apologies to the sitting-week social tennis team on Thursday morning.

The Treasurer had a legitimate excuse — he was on the phone to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg at 7am. Frydenberg’s mulleted teenage time at the net has been well-­documented; the good sport even provided this paper with two topless snaps of his time as a semi-pro.

The Treasurer’s tipping Novak Djokovic will take home his ninth Australian Open, if the Joker can overcome his mystery muscle tear.

Fryo told Strewth he wanted Vegemite kid Ash Barty to ace the women’s singles, but when we pointed out that he held a press conference in the middle of the world No 1’s quarter-final loss to Karolina Muchova on Wednesday, he laughed and said “how inconsiderate”.

BYO shirt.

Anthony Albanese is also predicting Djokovic will edge out Daniil Medvedev in the men’s final, and Naomi Osaka will take the women’s title. The early morning top spin is part of the Labor leader’s new year health kick.

He’s ditched the booze and dropped a few kgs since Christmas.

Albo serves up several weekend comps in Sydney’s inner west, including one that’s so serious they had to stop mid-match when a player’s shoes were deemed not white enough by an umpire. Liberal MP John Alexander, who in another life won seven single and 27 doubles titles, was cagey with his favourites.

We get the feeling the former world No 8 knows who’s going to win but won’t tell us. Labor MP Peter Khalil also competed on the inter­national circuit and was once ranked No 25 domestically for ­singles.

Albanese often jokes that Khalil is the “Nick Kyrgios” of the Parliament House hitters. He’s betting on a new generation of champions winning this weekend — Stefanos Tsitsipas to topple Djokovic and Osaka to beat Jennifer Brady.

Anthony Albanese, Peter Khalil, Josh Frydenberg, and John Alexander.

Kissing babies

“This is our third press conference together,” Anthony Albanese told Labor MP Alicia Payne’s five-month-old daughter Elena.

That’s more microphone time than most backbenchers get with the Opposition Leader!

Is this COVIDSafe?

Natter with Katter

Forget inner-city elites who use Facebook to find out about the latest laneway latte trend — Bob Katter wants to use Facebook’s “dummy spit” to build an Australian-owned social media platform.

He suggested calling it “The Ringer”, after the male or female stock workers on Australian cattle stations.

“We should not be held to ransom by a jumped-up, super-rich American know-all,” the 75-year-old said.

“I’ve been here in federal parliament almost 30 years and as far as I can tell, we’ve built nothing. But we have sold off all the things that the great governments before us built. I say the American tech giants should leave town immediately. We’ll run our own affairs, thank you.”

Katter suggested The Ringer™ could be run by an independent board, with a charter like the ABC.

Who could undertake such a digital offering?

How about the man who, according to resident non-tech head Tony Abbott, “virtually invented the internet in Australia” … Malcolm Bligh Turnbull AC!

? ? ?

📷 @GaryRamagePhotopic.twitter.com/mWbOhnJ0Q4

— Alice Workman (@workmanalice) February 16, 2021

Never tweet

What a diff’rence a day made, 24 little hours …

Liberal senator Andrew Bragg tweeted at 9:45am on Wednesday: “The media bargaining code is working. Deals are being done. Payment for public interest journalism is coming. Just three weeks ago, these laws were going to ‘break the internet’.”

We couldn’t put it better than Labor MP Josh Burns: “This tweet aged like a yoghurt in the sun.”

Andrew Bragg.

Cake walk

Please raise a champagne flute for Labor frontbencher Mark Butler, who is set to wed Daniela Ritorto this weekend in Adelaide.

Not even a pandemic can mask their happiness! It’s the second marriage for SA’s leading Lefty, who is still licking his wounds after being reshuffled from the climate and energy portfolios to health and ageing.

The couple officially announced their relationship in July 2019 with this very sexy line in the member for Hindmarsh’s register of interests: “My partner is employed as manager – media and communications by Santos Ltd”. They stepped out publicly, hand-in-hand, at the Midwinter Ball in September that year.

Mark Butler and Daniela Ritorto.

Ritorto was SBS’s chief political correspondent in the Parliament House press gallery for two years from February 2016 to February 2018, before moving home to Adelaide to spin for Santos. Ironic, given Butler’s hesitancy to support new gas projects. She now works for 89 Degrees East, a strategic communications agency with clients including NAB, the federal Department of Health, NDIS, Arnotts, Specsavers, Afterpay, Football Federation Australia, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and Uber.

Unfortunately, COVID restrictions appear to be the something blue at the Labor love-in.

No one from greater Melbourne can travel to the nuptials and there’s a limit of 200 invitees (plus social distancing of one person per 2sq m). But guests are allowed to dance and drink standing up!

Former SA premier Jay Weatherill will be in attendance, as will Labor’s Senate leader Penny Wong and her partner, Sophie. NSW comrade Pat Conroy has also completed the “cross- border travel registration” required to fly in.

Strewth has been told Butler won’t be heading off on a honeymoon after he ties the knot, but will be back at work for the last sitting week in February. How romantic!

What we really want to know is … will Butler wear one of his beloved pairs of American cowboy boots down the aisle or at the reception?

Cheers!

Love and marriage

“I might offer one word of caution for those who are jumping on board saying, ‘I want it, I want it, I want it’,” divorcee Barnaby Joyce claimed about climate change.

“You can’t say I’m going to marry a person and then say I actually want to marry someone else. Once you said you’re in, you’re in.”

Backbencher Barnaby.

[e-mail]