Scott Morrison’s compassion pith over Alexander Downer

“Scott Morrison offering Alexander Downer as a sacrificial lamb (or perhaps a Maggie Beer quince-glazed lamb shoulder) to the Trump administration is just the latest manifestation of compassionate conservatism in action,” one Liberal backbencher humorously suggested to Strewth. A joke we’re sure Downer would enjoy, given the former Liberal leader once quipped that the Coalition’s domestic violence policy should be called “the things that batter” (in reference to the Liberals’ slogan at the time, The Things That Matter). And we’ve seen a touch of “tender-hearted traditionalism” from the Morrison-McCormack team this week. Social Services Minister Anne Ruston justified not raising the rate of Newstart because doing so would “give drug dealers more money and give pubs more money”, while Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton practised “pitying preservation” when he suggested Centrelink should cancel climate change protesters’ payments. Or perhaps he would call it “merciful moderation”?

Don’t ask, don’t tell

Scott Morrison wasn’t keen to divulge much during his sit-down with soon-to-be-ABC-but-Sky-News-for-now’s David Speers on Thursday. “I’ll leave the hyperventilation on these matters to others who are far better equipped to practise it,” the Prime Minister said about the “breathless commentary” that has engulfed the airwaves about subjects he did not pre-approve. As the interview continued, Morrison invoked the spirit of Herman Melville’s notorious scamp, Bartleby the Scrivener, telling Speers: “Well, I don't feel the need to comment on those things David, I really don’t.” This is a diplomatic tool we encourage all Strewth readers to deploy in their day-to-day life, however mundane. If your partner inquires whether you’ve put the bins out, feel free to follow the Prime Minister’s lead and reply: “At the moment it’s quite a hypothetical question.” When your boss wants to know what you think about their email: “Look, these are not matters, frankly … that have been recommended to me as requiring any close attention.” If a child requests you weigh in on an after-school spat: “No, I don’t think it’s helpful.” Or if your mother asks if you remembered your father’s birthday: “That’s a matter for him.” Which reminds me: happy birthday, Dad (for Wednesday)!

Albanese v Karvelas

Anthony Albanese, on the other hand, is keen to keep talking about Morrison’s telephone time with Donald Trump until he sees that transcript. The Opposition Leader, it seems, has an answer for everything — except a Freaky Friday world where he won the May federal election.

Patricia Karvelas: If you had been prime minister and you’d received this call, would you have refused the President’s request?

Albanese: Well, I didn’t receive the call.

Karvelas: I’m not taking the Prime Minister’s (non) response.

Albanese: Absolutely, because it is important that he be held to account.

Karvelas: What would you have done?

Albanese: Well, I’m not going to answer hypotheticals. I’m running for prime minister as Leader of the Opposition. So it is important; part of what I have to do is to hold the Prime Minister to account for his own actions, and to make sure that he can continue this response which is becoming a pattern of not giving all the facts and not being accountable.

Karvelas: But you can’t say you wouldn’t have done the same thing.

Albanese: Well, it didn’t happen. I mean what would you have said, were you …

Karvelas: I’m not running for prime minister.

Albanese: And I’m not the Prime Minister, either.

Phew, glad that’s settled!

Mea culpa

Finally, a quick correction corner! On Wednesday, Strewth wrote that NSW Liberal upper house MP Natalie Ward’s husband David Begg was the business partner of Michael Photios, former Liberal minister turned boss of PremierState. Ward informs us that Begg is in fact Photios’s former right-hand man, having voluntarily relinquished all interest in the lobbying firm before she stood for preselection. Ward chaired the NSW parliament’s committee that recommended lifting Sydney’s lockout laws, and we apologise for any suggestion of impropriety in the discharge of her duties. The Liberal MP’s work has garnered headlines in Melbourne after she made this dig at Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews: “Australia only has one truly global city and that is Sydney. We have the best city, the best harbour and the best offering. Melbourne might think it is in the race but it absolutely is not.” Hear, hear!

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