Strewth: gone to pot

It was hard not to feel sorry for the blokes with the giant joint in front of Parliament House yesterday.

It was hard not to feel sorry for the blokes with the giant joint in front of Parliament House yesterday. After all the effort they’d gone to — a jazz cigarette the length of a bus, a themed Barack Obama poster — the protesters calling for the legalisation of cannabis (on medicinal grounds) must have looked at the anti-camps crew spreading their banner across the face of Parliament House and thought, “Bugger.”

Like Aldous Huxley dying the same day as a certain assassination in Dallas, the wacky tobacky posse was totally eclipsed. Yet, despite every camera and pair of police eyes trained on the anti-campers, the pot platoon wasn’t ready to give up. A loudhailer coughed into life. “We’re from another refugee camp from the war on drugs in Nimbin!” a voice called hopefully up the slope. And a little while later: “When you finally release those refugees, they’re going to need some medicinal cannabis for their post-traumatic stress disorder.” Full points for trying. Better luck next time.

Don’t keep off the grass. Picture: Kym Smith

Ring of truth

We extend our gratitude to Jacqui Lambie for introducing to the Senate the concept of “the anus of proof”. This is surely a close relative of Tony Abbott’s “suppository of all wisdom”, and perhaps a more distant cousin of “the butt of jokes”.

Family gathering

As lovely as Bill Shorten’s official Christmas card is, what strikes us most is the clear longing on his face for a third bulldog, and the equally powerful determination on Chloe Shorten’s face to keep the household bulldog population to just two. Though we could of course be overextrapolating.

Festive greetings from the Shortens.

Achievement unlocked

Before question time descended into a prolonged experiment by Labor to see if it could provoke Barnaby Joyce into spontaneously combusting, Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman gave Malcolm Turnbull the perfect opportunity to look back sunnily on the year now drawing to a close: “Would the PM update the house on the government’s achievements …” At the sound of the last word, Turnbull coughed loudly, and twice. This triggered some mirth. Then he rose. The achievements didn’t get a look-in. It was as if the question had rearranged itself on the prime ministerial eardrum to say, “Would the PM care to tip a bucket of ordure on Labor?”

In for a dig

It was a gentler during the valedictory speeches earlier as the two leaders administered mild burns to each other. Turnbull went so far as making use of a Peta Credlin coining: “Mr Harbourside Mansion was surely the epithet of the campaign. Of course, Bill desperately wanted the title for himself, but like all good socialists he wanted a harbourside mansion paid for by the taxpayer.” Shorten for his part offered this: “The PM and I actually have more in common than people realise. We’re both married to brilliant women. We’ve both battled the member for Warringah. We’ve both grown up wanting to help run the AWU and join the Labor Party.”

Gamblers’ den

At an Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council lunch in Sydney, Israeli National Security and Foreign Affairs Minister Tzachi Hanegbi gently sidestepped questions about James Packer but shared an anecdote. He said his son had been part of a group hired by Packer to test the security weaknesses of his Australian casinos by trying to break into their most sensitive areas. Hanegbi said his son managed to do it at the Melbourne casino and it was straightforward: “He just said he worked there.” This, he observed, said a lot about the trusting, decent nature of Australians.

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