Strewth: Dutton surprise

JUST because Peter Dutton has had his hands on the Moss report since February 9 doesn’t mean he has to turn his back on spontaneity.

JUST because Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has had his hands on the Moss report since February 9 doesn’t mean he has to turn his back on the magic of spontaneity. Yesterday, he gave just 50 minutes’ notice of his press conference, where he had two press releases ready to go but no copies of the report into detention conditions on Nauru. Our colleague Sean Parnell, who had to read it in a hurry on his phone, was one of just two journalists there. He asked, “If the report was completed in early February, why are you releasing it today with less than an hour’s notice in Brisbane on the day that a former prime minister has died and there’s a cyclone up north?” Dutton declared this an “appalling” question, because, well, who could possibly look at all that and … and ... Moving along ...

Losing face

AS NSW lumbers towards its election, Opposition Leader Luke Foley is still fighting to boost his recognition factor. As the Guardian Australia’s Bridie Jabour put it: “If Foley were to do a street walk through there is every chance not a single person would recognise him.” The ALP yesterday opted to put out a photo of Foley and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews in which their faces were blurred.

Prize writer

ON the Seven Network’s Million Dollar Minute last night, contestant Andrew Skarbek had to answer five questions, including: “John Lethlean is an Australian writer specialising in which subject? A. Cars. B. Food. C. Sport.” Skarbek is an avid reader of Lethlean’s restaurant reviews in this august organ, so picked B. He was suddenly faced with $766,000 prize money, a radical turnaround for a bloke $50,000 out of pocket after six months of gruellingly intensive treatment for a form of lymphoma. But he’s holding out for the $1 million on Monday. He says if he wins, he wants to take Lethlean to lunch.

Fraser jolly good fella

FOLLOWING the death of Malcolm Fraser, let’s revisit this Strewth item from a couple of years ago starring taxi driver Thomas Chau: “Chau came to Australia in 1979, a seven-year-old in a boat with his family fleeing Vietnam. It took a couple of goes; the first time, he says, they were caught and one of the men in the party was shot. The second time, people died on the boat and corpses were tipped over the side and left to the mercy of the sharks. But he made it in the end and, as an enthusiastic Australian, remains grateful to the PM whose government made it possible for him and other Vietnamese boatpeople. As Chau told Strewth yesterday: ‘If Malcolm Fraser ever gets in my taxi, he can have free ride — even if he wants to go all the way to Canberra.’ ”

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