Strewth: neigh to the Melbourne Cup for Turnbull

Malcolm Turnbull, a fan of Bondi Beach, will watch today’s Melbourne Cup on television.

Malcolm Turnbull will be a no-show at the Melbourne Cup today. The Prime Minister’s spokesman told Strewth our dear leader would be watching the big race on telly. Of course, the member for Wentworth will be backing Bondi Beach. Turnbull also failed to appear at the Birdcage last year but tweeted he had “won the office sweep”. We wish the Prime Minister luck in the sweep this time around. Though not turning up won’t help perceptions the Prime Minister is just not that into Melbourne.

Short-en memory

Bill Shorten and wife Chloe will be attending tomorrow’s equestrian festivities. Labor’s first couple will be guests of the Victorian Racing Club (the big corporate sponsors must have forgotten to put them on their lists). And they’ll be popping their heads into a couple of headline marquees. Shorten’s spokesman told Strewth the Opposition Leader was putting money on Boom Time in the big race. When asked, hours later, at a press conference who he was tipping, Shorten stared at his mobile phone for 30 seconds before confirming he was indeed tipping Boom Time.

Scottish bred

Strewth will be staying true to its Scottish roots and placing a bet on Nakeeta. He’s the first Scottish-trained horse to compete at the Melbourne Spring Carnival’s biggest race. Trainer Iain Jardine has brought the eight-year-old bay gelding all the way Down Under from Carrutherstown on the Scotland-England border. If Nakeeta wins, he’ll be the mother country’s pride and joy now that Scotland’s star tennis player Sir Andy Murray has totally gone off. Seriously, nobody award that horse a knighthood in the next few hours. It was all downhill from there for Murray.

One hump or two?

Kevin Rudd will not be attending Cup day but the former prime minister has made some new four-legged friends. Rudd posted this pic on Twitter yesterday of him with a pair of camels. “Book sales here in the Arabian Desert going well. A lot of interest from the locals. Particularly section on Iraq,” he tweets. Camels can carry up to 80 pounds of fat in their humps to fend off starvation but it’s yet to be proved if the creatures can really handle all 688 pages of Rudd’s new memoir. But what an image. K-Rudd riding through the sand dunes with his personal copy of Not for the Faint-hearted, reading excerpts about the Queensland Public Service to passing nomads.

Some locals queue up for Kevin Rudd’s hefty tome.

In green pastures

When Strewth got a press release Sunday night titled “Sister Earth”, we naturally assumed Greenpeace was at it again. But it was a statement from the north Queensland representative of the one true Catholic faith (plus the local Anglican dude). Catholic Bishop Timothy Harris and Anglican Bishop William Ray are using this month’s state election to highlight greenie causes from the Great Barrier Reef to the Galilee Basin (with some scripture backing them up). “Nature is our ‘first Bible’,” they wrote. They even stuck in a prayer for the Climate Council into their statement. All the bishops need now is to get rid of the dog-collars and put on some “Stop Adani” T-shirts. No doubt Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and LNP leader Tim Nicholls will be keeping an eye on the righteous bishops as they try to win over their swinging north Queensland flocks.

Battler Bus bubbly

Pauline Hanson got a lot of flak yesterday for christening her “battler bus” with a bottle of champagne but Strewth can reveal the One Nation leader has not lost faith with the working class. After Hanson popped some bubbly at her Queensland campaign launch yesterday, Annastacia Palaszczuk and NSW senator Sam Dastyari attacked Hanson for being out-of-touch. But Hanson’s spokesman said the good senator launched her bus with a very cheap bottle of Yellowglen Pink. “Which goes for about seven bucks at Dan Murphy’s,” Hanson’s spokesman says. Cheaper than your regular goon bag. This time Hanson passes the “I’m too broke to go to the pub” test.

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