Strewth: Call and response

If you’re looking for an answer, don’t ask for a ministerial response.

Following a press conference by Infrastructure and Transport Minister Darren Chester on Monday, our doughty colleague Ean Higgins got in touch with his office via email: “Two questions for a story I am writing for tonight’s paper: 1. Will the government introduce requirements that airline passengers have to present photo identification before being allowed on board domestic flights, and if so, to whom, airline staff or government security agencies? 2. Will the government require all airports, including smaller regional airports, to have all passengers screened through metal detectors and their baggage X-rayed?” Higgins went on to express what gratitude he would feel if he could get a response by 5pm. The time was 3.15pm; Higgins may be firm, but he’s well brought up. But as the old saying goes, if wishes were horses beggars would ride. Shortly after 7.30pm, in rolled an email with some lines attributable to Chester: “The public should be confident in our existing airport security measures and the additional measures that have been temporarily put in place. The Australian government keeps aviation security measures under constant review and will consider whether any further measures are necessary. 2. All Australian airports, including regional airports, have been asked to exercise increased vigilance in their security operations, including at security screening points and within the terminal area …” And so on. What followed yesterday morning with Chester’s media adviser Kate Barwick was like a Wimbledon rally:

Higgins: “I’ll take it that’s a ‘no’ to both questions, unless I hear otherwise.”

Barwick: “What I’ve sent you has come directly from minister Chester. Nowhere does the word ‘no’ appear.”

Higgins: “OK, I’ll take it as a ‘yes’ to both questions, then, since you tell me it’s not a ‘no’, unless I hear otherwise.”

Barwick: “Ean, the quotes are the quotes. That’s it.”

Higgins: “Well, is it two ‘maybes’, perhaps?”

And it was here, just when it felt like it could go either way, that the coup de grace was delivered.

Barwick: “You asked for responses to two questions — you received responses to two questions.”

Game, set and match! Just remember, kids — if it’s an answer you want, ask for an answer and not a response. It is gratifying to see the minister’s office is so comprehensively aware of the gulf between the two. As for Higgins, he gave a standing ovation at his desk and spent the subsequent 10 minutes vigorously fanning himself, calling for water.

A niche opens

A job ad for the age we live in: “In a first for an industry super fund, Vision Super today announced they are seeking an enthusiastic environmental activist to join their Climate Action Team.”

Because Les was more

It was in 1995 that the masked musical geniuses/troubled souls that made up TISM (This is Serious Mum) released Machiavelli and the Four Seasons. Along with hits Greg! The Stop Sign!! and (He’ll Never Be an) Ol’ Man River, the album also asked some big questions: “What nationality is Les Murray?/ Wherefore hails his ancestry?” The answer to these queries was nicely done. When TISM won an ARIA for the album later that year, it was Murray who stepped up to the podium to accept the gong on the band’s behalf. Impeccably poker-faced, Murray eyed the audience and began, “In the immortal words of the great Hungarian centre forward Nandor Hidegkuti …” Whereupon Murray switched to Magyar and delivered the “quote” unto the room: “When the revolution comes, the music industry will be the first to go. Thank you very much.” TISM would go on to subtitle it a little more fancifully (“The music industry is a septic boil on the buttocks of humanity. I hope you all die a horrible death”), but the thrust was essentially the same.

Came, saw, squandered

We salute Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, who in a piece published last week was already writing of the White House comms director in the past tense. “I already miss Anthony Scaramucci,” he began. But as The Washington Post reported yesterday, there’s always someone who’ll take things one step further. In this case it’s the latest Harvard Law School alumni directory, which lists him as dead. Sorrow followed.

A pluggin’ he will go

Congratulations to the Labor senator who managed to insert the title of his new book into an interview with Radio National’s Fran Kelly yesterday not twice, not thrice … but six times. We’d love to join in the spruiking frenzy, but alas we’re out of space.

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