Strewth: Man for all seasons

It’s possibly not quite where we pictured Scott Morrison’s prime ministership just before it hit the ripe old age of three months.

‘Hey baby, I hear the blues a-callin’, turned sausage and many fried eggs’, or, in other words, ScoMo on barbie duty. Picture: AAP

It’s possibly not quite where we pictured Scott Morrison’s prime ministership just before it hit the ripe old age of three months. On one side, you’ve got Pamela Anderson accusing him of being smutty and, furthermore, lewd. The erstwhile Baywatch star had asked the Prime Minister to help get her mate, Julian Assange, back to Australia. ScoMo responded by telling radio station Hot Tomato: “I’ve had plenty of mates who’ve asked me if they can be my special envoy to sort the issue out with Pamela Anderson.” (The Prime Minister’s office never got around to transcribing that interview, but that hasn’t stopped Defence Industry Minister Steven Ciobo from chiming in: “I suspect it was a statement that was said in a lighthearted way, and probably did reflect some comments that have been made to him.” Not a huge defence, but it was at least industrious. On the other, you’ve got a bloke being pinged to the tune of $500 for calling ScoMo a “f..king Muppet”. Arguably even tougher for the PM’s ego is that the same bloke, the Central West Daily duly reports, described him as “the premier”. So just to make things a bit cheerier, here is the PM (with a fresh addition to his Imelda Marcos-sized collection of caps) on breakfast barbie duties on HMAS Adelaide (above).

Hollywood star Pamela Anderson. Photo: AFP

Rough with the smooth

As the opening to Anna Karenina goes, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. Scott Morrison tried to get a bit of both yesterday when asked if the lack of a communique meant the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum was a failure: “No, it doesn’t. I mean, people have got to understand when there isn’t agreement that just means that the dialogue continues. I mean, we’ve got to stop kidding ourselves that everyone’s going to agree all the time. I mean, what family does that happen in?” As for the APEC barbie: “It really was a Sunday night family barbecue.” We trust the tongs were in safe hands at all times.

(Lunch) time of legends

The Liberal family has been busy not agreeing all the time on the work-in-progress that is the Israel embassy decision. Labor’s Penny Wong went with, “Botched embassy decision tearing government apart”. But some of the Libs at least are taking more varied approaches. For example, here’s Josh Frydenberg on 2GB pondering the words of Defence Minister Christopher Pyne: “Chris has been giving his opinion freely on this matter for quite a while, so I don’t know what got into his Wheaties this morning. Chris is his own person, as we know. He’s quite unique. And we’ll leave him to be a legend in his own lunchtime.” We have no doubt Pyne would be quite cross and point out something is unique or it is not — there are no degrees. Fair dinkum.

Triple treat

Good news for those who pine for the days when Tony Abbott used to call press conferences with so many Australian flags behind him it looked as if he had half the Milky Way in the room with him. Bill Shorten and Mark Dreyfus called a three-flag presser just to announce they’d sent the same letter to Scott Morrison they’d already sent to Malcolm Turnbull. As Deborah Conway put it, it’s only the beginning.

They’re going to need some bigger flags. Picture: AAP

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