Shirts happen
WE hope one day we’ll see an Australian election campaign fought out via the medium of tattoos, but for now, we’ll have to make do with T-shirts.
Strewth
Kerr-ang, boom
THERE is a good old-fashioned clash of egos taking place in Tasmania, where federal Labor MP Duncan Kerr is unleashing well-honed abuse at Tasmania’s Director of Public Prosecutions Tim Ellis, who is returning fire in true lawyerly style.
Facebook ouch
FREED from the constraints of political party membership, Queensland MP Michael “Commission Not Impossible” Johnson is channelling his energies into something vaster, nobler and a shedload more ambitious: the transformation of Australian politics.
Emmo’s bullet
BARELY a week ago, your humble Strewth scribe slipped away into the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, whereupon a wall of fog closed behind us.
Smith bats on
SOME say that Kevin Rudd hogs all the good bits of government by swanning around with Barack Obama and so on, but Foreign Minister Stephen Smith gets to do some pretty special stuff, too.
YouTube minder
IF you’ve ever been to a modern politician’s press conference, you’ll know that none are capable of entering a room alone anymore.
Skivvies be gone
YESTERDAY’S Strewth was all about the Sydney Writers’ Festival, which was good for some but others said: “Oh, come on! Who cares about people who wear corduroy jackets and high-necked skivvies and smoke thin cigarettes and suck up to Christopher Hitchens surely knowing he’d have a drink with anyone and has, with everyone?”
Wowsers
TODAY, we bring you a special edition of Strewth bearing delicious gossip from the mad, bad Sydney Writers Festival. Much of it is booze-related and all of it is true.
Julia Caesar?
ON Nine’s Sunday program, Laurie Oakes had a bit of fun but no luck trying to get Julia Gillard to admit to prime ministerial ambitions.
Carefree G-G
AS she prepared to have an honorary doctorate in law bestowed on her by the University of Sydney yesterday, Governor-General Quentin Bryce got to indulge in the finest academic tradition: donning a silly hat and a gown that made her look like a sort of Bauhaus Santa Claus.
Talk is cheap
IT can’t be very nice having allegations about your attempts at collecting fat commissions splashed over the front page of The Australian.
Abbott’s on first
FIRST item today in the gospel of Strewth is, as you may expect, Tony Abbott, for it is time to thank him for the glee he has brought into this troubled world.
Dog-eat-dog life
IT’S been a while since Bill Hayden roused the drover’s dog from its metaphorical kennel, but thanks to Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, we’re thinking the relationship between canines and ALP leadership tensions could be worth investigating.
Peeved pollster
IT may surprise some political junkies to learn veteran pollmeister Gary Morgan is also chairman of Hamoa Mining.
Given the finger
IT was probably during the nanoseconds between Kevin Rudd’s crack about “7.30 Report land” and the chilly “mate” he swung into Kerry O’Brien like an ice pick (hyperbole licence No 57300) that the simple yet inspirational equation lit up in the collective brain of the ALP: get grumpy, get traction!
Keeping the faith
AS members and senators returned to Parliament House on the morning after the budget – none the worse for wear, of course – there was a gaggle of hardy media crews waiting to catch the merest sliver of backbench wisdom.
School’s in
WHEN Strewth last walked out of question time in federal parliament a couple of months ago, Christopher Pyne was, at the firm suggestion of Speaker (and patron saint of the perpetually exasperated) Harry Jenkins, withdrawing some unparliamentary language, and Kevin Rudd was spouting something in his own particular tongue.
In the red
IT was just a small variation of the question that dogged Julia Gillard yesterday in honour of yet another poll melting some wax from Kevin Rudd’s wings, but it was Neil Mitchell’s query on 3AW that produced the most interesting answer: “So will you promise you will not be leader at the next federal election?”
Getting Nicked
ONE role we’d never pictured independent South Australian senator Nick Xenophon playing was that of a managerial grim reaper, but there he was yesterday trying first to promote former Tasmanian opposition leader Michael Hodgman, then knock him off altogether in a batch of not quite fully baked press releases.
Sing for supper
ONCE upon a time, Malcolm Turnbull collaborated with Bob Ellis on a superb but doomed project: a musical based on the life of 1920s NSW premier Jack Lang.
Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/strewth/page/123