Strewth: Labor’s Mark Dreyfus and the forgotten sales of state assets

When the bells started ringing, Malcolm Turnbull and Steven Ciobo had to bolt off to vote.

When the bells started ringing during Malcolm Turnbull and Steven Ciobo’s presser with EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom, the first two had to bolt off to vote, vanishing in the direction of the House of Representatives with the speed of a Christopher Pyne. (Amusingly, it was only the second comically interrupted press conference of the morning.) The reason the bells rang was that opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus was having a crack at suspending standing orders. It was a busy morning for Dreyfus, who’d earlier tweeted, “The Liberal Party voted two to one to sell off the ABC on the weekend. Never let them fool you — privatising valuable public assets is Liberal philosophy.” At some point, as Dreyfus sits down and mulls over the situation with a nice cuppa, little memories may start flickering in his mind. Such as the privatisation of Qantas, which happened under Labor. And the Commonwealth Bank, which was privatised in three stages under, er, Labor. While there are clearly very different issues at play between a bank, an airline and Bananas in Pyjamas Central, we still look forward to a thunderous oration in which Dreyfus retrospectively berates Paul Keating and Bob Hawke; PJK would enjoy a chuckle. (Or at least more than that time internet scamp Dan Nolan invented the Keating insult generator.)

Looking up

One suspects the Prime Minister is fed up with Labor snots and their insinuating questions about tax cuts for million-dollar-a-year bankers in the exceedingly well-to-do Sydney harbourside suburb of Vaucluse. Why, he doesn’t live in Vaucluse at all, but around the corner at Point Piper! Anyway, by question time yesterday he’d had a gutful and, transcending the fact he speaks as if he has had every syllable lovingly wrapped in velvet, opined that Labor MPs “sound very much like a privileged elite”. This came close to getting a standing ovation from Labor. Who knows what he’d say about recent Liberal Party recruit senator Lucy “Just a measly 200 grand” Gichuhi.

Increased fibre intake

Turnbull was on cheerier ground when he performed his rough plug of Chris Bowen’s book, a ritual rubbishing that informs all listening “it’s available wherever remaindering occurs”. Turnbull does this an awful lot. Given that he’s riffing on Clive James’s poem The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered, we hope James is getting royalties. (Sample lines: “My enemy’s much-prized effort sits in piles/ In the kind of bookshop where remaindering occurs …” From here James’s poem gathers joyfully malevolent steam, ultimately constituting a long opposite to the Gore Vidal lament, “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.”) Later, though, Turnbull tried another line, suggesting that as Bowen was having to eat his own words, he was munching through copy after copy of his book (it’s called Hearts & Minds, by the by). By the second mention (“it’s very dry to have to be munching away through all those books!”), a voice floated above the Labor benches: “This is bizarre.”

Sheepand Weaver

Props to Coalition senator Barry O’Sullivan for showing he still likes to plan ahead. Informing the Senate yesterday why he was going easy on Derryn Hinch’s proposed ban on live sheep exports, he said this: “I’m in love with one of senator Hinch’s former wives. He tells me that’s OK, he’s still in love with the magnificent Jacki Weaver as well. I don’t want to do anything that might impede my opportunity to meet her in the future.” Noted, senator, noted.

Surprise irrigation

The Clive Palmer sprinkler incident (see The Sketch) got us thinking back to this Strewth item from 2012: “Our esteemed colleague, sports writer Peter Kogoy, owns a moustache of such bulk and luxuriant bushiness it wouldn’t look out of place in a car wash. From beneath this lip hedge — one of the great, natural wonders of The Australian’s Sydney HQ — issues such a distinctive growl of a voice, it has earned Kogoy the sobriquet of Monster. He often uses it to announce his arrival with breaking news rather than more mundane greetings. For example, yesterday’s arrival was announced with, “Malcolm Conn and I just missed out on having a midmorning shower.’’ Naturally, this got the attention of everyone within earshot (that is, in a three-furlong radius). It turned out he’d been at a press conference at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium when part way through, a curator prematurely turned on the sprinklers. Luckily, Kogoy, Conn and most of the rest of the sports hack pack got out without a soaking, but as Monster boomed solemnly, “Some poor bastard from radio didn’t make it.”

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