Strewth: Sarah Hanson-Young’s fair dinkum shocker

The committee into “Fair Dinkum Power” concluded that it couldn’t reach a conclusion.

Fair dinkum shocker

A week ago, in the quiet wasteland of Friday afternoon when politicians typically dump announcements they don’t want reported, the Greens-established Committee into Fair Dinkum Power concluded that — drum roll, please — it couldn’t reach a conclusion. How un-fair dinkum and bloody un-Australian is that? The committee was created to mock then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull after he used the phrase “fair dinkum power” but has turned into an own goal for the Greens. “Due to the prorogation of parliament and the election, the committee has not been able to complete its inquiry and report as intended,” Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, the committee chairwoman, wrote in the non-report released last week. That’s despite receiving 44 submissions and holding a public hearing in March.

Sarah Hanson-Young happy for another term. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

However, there was this caveat: “The committee recommends the Senate re-establish the committee in the 46th parliament, with provision to access the documents and evidence of this committee, to enable the inquiry to be completed.” Your taxpayer dollars hard at work.

Powerful message

Speaking of power, politicians often are offered advice, but Nationals MP Keith Pitt says he wasn’t expecting this from two Canberra parishioners after the church service to welcome back parliament: “Keep going — saw you on TV — nuclear’s the way to go!”

Feats of Derryn-do

Friday fun fact: journalist and former senator Derryn Hinch has interviewed all 14 Australian prime ministers since Robert Menzies, with the footnote that the Menzies “interview” took place at a press conference in 1964 when he was just 20. Hinch says Menzies was “so imperious and superior” and thought journalists were “an unnecessary evil”. But we digress. Strewth is proud to announce that the human headline’s record will continue, with Scott Morrison promising to appear on Hinch’s new Thursday night Sky News show in coming weeks. We also hear Hinch has churned out 70,000 words in the past week for a new tell-all book, due out by Christmas.

Facing the Husic

The zingers were few and far between on the hill this week, but Strewth found one MP, Labor member for Chifley Ed Husic, in this question time exchange. As Liberal MP Lucy Wicks announced her question was for the Minister for Emissions Reductions, Husic heckled: “Are we doing ironic titles now?” When Treasurer Josh Frydenberg claimed he was “very shy” during his university days, Husic demanded: “He’s misleading the house, point of order!” Runner-up was Liberal MP for Mackellar Jason Falinski. Not only did he describe Labor’s arguments about tax cuts as the “product of the (movie) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” but he delivered a nice, slow burn. “I notice that the member for Burt (Labor’s Matt Keogh) has been repositioned closer to the dispatch box — much well deserved — from the outer regions where he used to sit,” Falinski said. “It reminds me of something that one of his personal heroes, (former US defence secretary) Donald Rumsfeld, once said: ‘There are some people who be; that’s just a fact, and we don’t know why.’ I know that there are professors of semantics who wondered what Donald Rumsfeld was saying, but listening to the Leader of the Opposition I believe he was talking about that speech.”

Best and fairest went to Liberal MP for Goldstein Tim Wilson for his effort against Labor leader Anthony Albanese and Labor MP for McEwen Rob Mitchell, who at the time was sitting in the Speaker’s chair.

Wilson: It’s an opposition policy zone as empty as space and as relevant as Swannie. It wants to be the middle ground between tax rises and cuts, and it lies between the pit of Australia’s hip pockets and the ballot box. This is the dimension of absurdity. It is an area we call the Albanese opposition zone.

Mitchell: The member for Grayndler on a point of order?

Albanese: Yes, the obvious one.

Mitchell: To address members by their correct title.

Wilson: The member for Grayndler zone.

Mitchell: I ask the member for Goldstein: don’t push your luck.

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