Oscar arrives

Strewth is delighted to welcome the first baby of the 46th Parliament.

Welcolme Oscar Thomas Walker, who was was born at 1.24pm on Monday, Adelaide time, to mum Amanda Rishworth and dad Tim Walker.

Oscar arrives

Strewth is delighted to welcome the first baby of the 46th parliament. Oscar Thomas Walker was born at 1.24pm on Monday, Adelaide time, to mum Amanda Rishworth and dad Tim Walker. Weighing in at 3.1kg and 51cm in length, he has a good set of lungs, according to sources close to the matter. He sounds made for the Labor benches during question time. Oscar’s arrival was no surprise. Rishworth, who is known among colleagues for her organisational prowess, scheduled the birth well in advance of the release of sitting dates after the May 18 election. And as she is Labor’s spokeswoman for early childhood education and youth, we can’t wait to hear her reports from the frontline. Oscar joins older brother Percy, who is nearly four.

Splendour of Albo

Labor leader Anthony Albanese spent his Sunday at the Splendour in the Grass music festival at Byron Bay. After snapping a selfie with Powderfinger frontman Bernard Fanning and watching indie pop band The Beths from the side of the stage, Albanese sat on a live Q&A panel alongside Warringah independent Zali Steggall, Liberal backbencher Andrew Laming, Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, Dr David Caldicott and 17-year-old Will “Egg Boy” Connolly. Print media journos weren’t allowed to watch the panel hosted by the ABC’s Emma Alberici. However, Strewth understands the leftie crowd told Albanese they’re keen for him to become prime minister but not so keen on Richard Marles’s coal comments. Laming confronted Caldicott over the science of pill testing, and didn’t get a satisfactory answer. Steggall — the only woman on the panel despite dozens of requests to Coalition women — told the crowd she planned to remain an independent for her first three years in parliament. She repeated her previous comments that there were more pressing issues to deal with than religious freedom, such as, you guessed it, real action on climate change. One Curl Curl local furiously emailed Strewth wondering why Steggall was there, as during the election campaign she “bombarded” locals with the message that her predecessor Tony Abbott spent too much time out of Warringah to deliver for locals. In a video posted to Instagram, Steggall said she was there to “talk about important issues and to enjoy some great Australian music”.

Big on Boris

In anticipation of our colonisers crowning a new prime minister, Strewth decided to reach out to the No 1 Boris Johnson fan in federal parliament, Queensland Liberal senator James McGrath. “As captain of Team Boris here in Australia, I’m renaming Tuesday Borisday in anticipation of his election as leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister of the United Kingdom,” McGrath told Strewth. The deputy government whip is well versed in the life and times of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, having served as the deputy campaign director for his London mayoral campaign. He also has held many roles in the Conservative Party, including campaign co-ordinator from 2002 to 2008, senior adviser to the shadow chancellor and chief of staff to the party chairman. But a Liberal backing a Tory is nothing new. So Strewth decided to dust off the section 44 klaxon and ask some federal politicians who were born in Britain to find out who should take over the Tory leadership. Unsurprisingly, few were willing to go on the record with their punt and no one was willing to back Jeremy Hunt. Brian Mitchell, Labor member for the Tasmanian seat of Lyons, was born in Coventry and told Strewth “Jacob Rees-Mogg is surely the pick of the Tory litter. I can’t believe he’s not a candidate.” London-born Greens senator Nick McKim — fresh from his Manus Island deportation — said there were “rain-soaked gumboots that have been under Waterloo Bridge for years that are more inspiring choices than anything the Tories are offering”. Typical Green: he didn’t pick a Tory he’d prefer to see as PM. He didn’t even pick the current UK Greens leader but said he’d like to see Caroline Lucas in the top job.

Remembering 9/11

New Liberal member for Lindsay Melissa McIntosh gave her first speech yesterday, and it included this moment of reflection about how she had ended up in parliament. “I was given a wonderful opportunity to travel to New York for work. A couple of days out from my departure, the trip was cancelled. I was disappointed. I was going to be staying at the famous twin towers. I would have been in one of those towers on September 11. I will never forget that day, sitting in an almost empty office in Sydney, about 20 storeys up, overlooking Hyde Park, wondering what would have happened if I had made it to New York.”

[e-mail]