Strewth: Intruder alert at Parliament House

Parliament returned and no one tried to land a punch and no one daubed blood on a door. Instead, there was a cyber attack.

What’s missing from this picture? Clearly not Australian Cyber Centre head Alastair MacGibbon. Picture Kym Smith

Intruder alert

Parliament returned and no one tried to land a punch and no one, as far as we can ascertain, daubed blood across anyone’s door. Instead, there was a cyber attack courtesy of a “state actor”. As Scott Morrison spelt it out: “Members will be aware that the Australian Cyber Security Centre recently identified a malicious intrusion into the Australian Parliament House computer network … We also became aware that the networks of some political parties — Liberal, Labor and the Nationals — have also been affected.” Poor old Greens. Still, it was at least a refreshing change to the more regular kind of political hack one finds in the building. National cyber security adviser and Australian Cyber Security Centre head Alastair MacGibbon gave a press conference in Parliament House to assure all he and his people were on top of it and all data was safe. Presser completed, he strode off purposefully — only to return even more purposefully (with a sheepish smile) to fetch his phone, which he had left on a table. (As a small, spooky bonus, the lights mysteriously went off in the lower house later as Tony Burke sank the slipper into the government.)

Two birds, one stone

Multi-tasking, Tony Abbott used his latest appearance on 2GB to simultaneously sledge his Warringah opponent Zali Steggall and the man who rolled him: “She didn’t vote for the Howard government. She didn’t even vote for the Turnbull government. How left do you have to be to not even vote for the Turnbull government?”

Growing as a person

But while some pollies grow ever farther apart, others go the other way. Ponder Labor’s conference in 2011, when senator Doug Cameron offered support for a leadership team that included Bill Shorten: “I never thought I’d say that. Good on ya, Bill.” Here’s Cameron yesterday: “Bill Shorten has provided leadership, stability and policy development in contrast to the chaos, division and disunity in the Coalition.” Bravo.

Vowels and stresses

While some wrestle with how to best pronounce pricey Manus security contractor Paladin — stress first syllable, or go with the second syllable and make it sound like something involving genies? — Strewth reader Peter Davson-Galle is digging into another word du jour: “When I was in the army, a medical evacuation was referred to by the contraction ‘MedEvac’. Current usage seems to favour the contraction ‘MediVac’. Whether this is just sloppy subediting or an exercise in neologism, I know not. The expansion of the ‘Medi’ part is clear. What is less clear is how the ‘Vac’ is to be expanded. … My best hypothesis (in the context of use) is that ‘MediVac’ is a contraction of ‘Medical Vacillation’ (as in going back and forth).”

Quokka good times

One of the smaller thanks in Kate Ellis’s valedictory speech was to her old frontbench neighbour Richard Marles for question time fun. We must hark back to a few lines in Strewth in October 2016: “Labor frontbenchers Richard Marles and Kate Ellis got a gust of the giggles so powerful it looked as if they might actually fall on to the green carpet. This apparently was the result of three ne’er-do-wells in the press gallery above them, busily tweeting photos highlighting the remarkable and endearing fact that if you put Marles’s face next to a quokka’s, it can take longer than you’d expect to say which is which.” As the old wisdom goes, some stuff’s funny because it’s true.

The workers united

Spotted by a Strewth field agent: a shiny new Jaguar E-Pace with the number plate V-CFMEU.

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