Strewth: It’s a Pyne line

Christopher Pyne plans to shed new light on the ‘craziest 12 years in Australian politics’ in his new memoir.

News for Pyne-cones (or is Pyne-nuts perhaps more appropriate?): Christopher Pyne plans to shed new light on the “craziest 12 years in Australian politics” in his new memoir The Insider. The fixer and former cabinet minister retired at last year’s federal election after serving as the member for Sturt since 1993. But the $34.99 book, due on June 30, will focus on the heady spill days of 2007 to 2019, which he calls the wildest “since Federation”. “No one was closer to Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull in the leadership group than me over at least a 10-year period,” Pyne says. Publisher Hachette guarantees 352 pages of “revelations of dealings, double dealings, friendships and feuds”. Add this to his podcast Pyne Time, weekly column in Adelaide’s The Advertiser and regular television appearances on Ten’s The Project, and Pyne is in serious danger of becoming overexposed. Meanwhile, the pre-order price for Turnbull’s tell-all tome A Bigger Picture, from Hardie Grant, has already been slashed from $55 to $40.75 on Booktopia. It’s scheduled to hit shelves on April 20.

League of leaders

Will No 1 Sharks fan (for at least the past few years) Scott Morrison be at ANZ Stadium on Saturday when Cronulla kicks off round one of the NRL season against Anthony Albanese’s South Sydney Rabbitohs? Despite calls by former Labor leader Bill Shorten for Australia to implement “drastic social distancing measures” and cancel big sporting events (following the end of the NBA season after a basketball player tested positive), both the Prime Minister and
the Opposition Leader confirmed to Strewth that they will attend the game.

Duck stops here

Shorten had quite the stimulating chat with Sky News host Laura Jayes on Thursday. Here’s an excerpt:

Shorten: “This is about the coronavirus and the public health emergency. But the lesson, which I think has been learned, is — for years, the current mob in power rubbished Wayne Swan and Kevin Rudd for having the stimulus package. Now it seems that whilst they’re trying to say it’s different, the reality is, you know, if it walks and quacks like a duck, it probably is. And this is a stimulus package. And sure, circumstances are different, but it seems to me they’re resorting to the same economic textbook that Wayne and Kevin used.”

Jayes: “Keynesians? We’re all Keynesian now?”

Shorten: “Well, some people probably never stopped being Keynesians. But, you know, the point about it is that one thing that the economist (John) Keynes said, and I don’t think I’ve got the quote exactly right, but it’s

effectively: when the facts change, so does his opinion. And I think

that Messrs Frydenberg and Morrison, having rubbished Labor, now are confronted with a set of circumstances, they’ve gone, oops, well, we won’t call ourselves Keynesians but, you know, hey, if it walks and

quacks …”

Big spenders

Morrison says he trusts the “common sense” of Quiet Australians to spend (not pocket) his cash stimulus and not to take coronavirus advice from Twitter. However, we can’t go past this earworm from @sommarsaknife: “Every time I see COVID-19 written out I read it to the tune of Come On Eileen.”

Castaway again

“Any people who have come into close contact with Tom Hanks will need to self-isolate,” Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced after the Hollywood star and his wife, Rita Wilson, both 63, tested positive to COVID-19. They’re being treated on the Gold Coast, where Hanks has been filming Baz Luhrmann’s untitled Elvis Presley project. But could the pair be super spreaders? Today Extra host David Campbell and other Nine staff are in lockdown after interviewing Wilson. On Saturday, Hanks snapped selfies with fans on Bondi Beach while Wilson performed at the Opera House later that day. “At least Tom Hanks has a bit of practice at this ‘self isolation’ thing,” Labor MP Stephen Jones tweeted with a photo of a bearded Hanks in the movie Cast Away along with his volleyball friend Wilson (which we’ve just realised is also his wife’s surname … coincidence?). ABC journo Nick Wiggins saw inspiration in Hanks’s role in Sully, tweeting: “If he can land that plane on the Hudson, he can beat this.” Hanks’s heavily tattooed rapper son Chet offered a chill pill, taking to Instagram to say: “They both are fine. They’re not even that sick. They’re not worried about it.” Meanwhile, singer Katy Perry was less than impressed when someone
handed her a rare roll of toilet paper during her bushfire fundraising concert in
Bright, Victoria. Doesn’t she know that it’s worth hundreds
on the underground brown market?

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