Strewth: Things that go ping

Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Dutton got to spend time in what at first glance looks like a gigantic, glowing suppository yesterday.

Doing the aviation security round at Melbourne airport yesterday, Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Dutton got to spend time in what at first glance looked like a gigantic, glowing suppository. This impression survived into the second glance, owing to the fact the word printed in its side was “Analogic”. Cue a few hearty jokes about smart-arses and/or Tony Abbott’s preferred vessel of wisdom (which sounds splinter-free at least, unlike Labor’s tree of knowledge). Turns out Analogic is a US company, and the giant luminous pill one of its baggage screening systems. Perhaps the name refers to ensuring things don’t slip through the cracks. But who can say for sure?

Your papers, please

The airport security highlight was on radio station 3AW, where host Neil Mitchell cut to the chase.

Mitchell: “You’re giving police more powers. What are they?”

Turnbull: “To ask people for identification. So, the police would be able to come up to you and say: ‘Hello’, you know, ‘who are you sir? Can I see your ID?’ ”

Mitchell: “On what grounds?”

Turnbull: “Just, they’ll be able to do that.”

Mitchell: “To anybody?”

Turnbull: “Yep, yep, yep in an airport.”

Mitchell: “So you’re not doing anything wrong, just walking through them or something?”

Turnbull: “Yeah, that’s right …”

At which point, the radical collided with the oddly deadpan.

Mitchell: “It’s a big step.”

Turnbull: “It is.”

Mitchell: “Why do we need it?”

Turnbull: “Dangerous times, Neil.”

In its own way, it’s a happy little flashback to our Moscow days.

With a friend like this

On Perth station 6PR, it fell to Oliver Peterson to quiz Christopher Pyne about the Libs’ decision to not contest the seats of Perth and Fremantle in the coming by-elections. Pyne’s co-star Anthony Albanese seemed unprepared for what followed.

Pyne: “So we’ll focus on Longman and Braddon and Mayo, all of which we have a better chance in, and we’ll let the Greens take on Labor in those two Perth seats. Of course, you can vote Green and you won’t change the government and you won’t hurt the opposition, but you can protest against the $220 billion of new taxes that Bill Shorten wants to levy on Australian companies and individuals.”

Albo: “I never thought I would hear Christopher Pyne tell people to vote for the Greens.”

Pyne: “Well, I’m just saying they could vote for the Greens and it wouldn’t change the government … I wouldn’t say it in your seat, Albo. I wouldn’t say it in Grayndler. I’d never say it in Grayndler. I was wearing a ‘Save Albo’ T-shirt at the last election.”

At least no one was talking about eating Bill Shorten this time. (And if you need that one explained, visit yesterday’s Strewth. We’re not ready to go back.)

For Richo, for poorer

Elsewhere, Albo was fielding a different sort of query.

Journo: “I don’t know if you have had a chance to look at party stalwart Graham Richardson’s column in The Australian today where … where he says he’s uncomfortable about the number of people who approach him in the street and say that they don’t trust Bill Shorten. Does Bill have a trust problem?”

Albo: “Well Graham Richardson … is a commentator these days rather than an ALP activist …”

It’s neither here nor there, of course, but as we mentioned in Strewth last month, in recent times Richo has been alarmed by his increasing tendency to find himself on the same wavelength as the member for Grayndler, going so far as to tell him: “I have to say, you’re a very convincing person sometimes. It worries me.”

In their site

In Townsville, Scott Morrison was prodded about the local stadium project, a topic that allowed him to embark on a brief bit of what we think of as the poetry of symmetry.

Journo: “Treasurer, any reason why you’re not touring the site today, like Bill Shorten did?”

ScoMo: “I did tour the site. I have just taken a tour of the site. It was good to get a tour of the site.”

He followed this with a reflection, one that carried within it a rare act of mercy: “I look really bad in those hats and glasses. I don’t know if Bill looks any better in them, quite frankly. I thought, you know, the three pretty faces you have here would look much better without the sunnies and the hats and the luminous vests. I thought I would give you a break from the luminous vests.”

The opposition Treasury spokesman, meanwhile continued his lonely quest to make his nickname for Morrison stick: “SloMo can’t get away Scott free.” Alas, his message arrived in inboxes with a warning attached: “[POTENTIAL VIRUS] CHRIS BOWEN”. Which strikes us as unnecessarily harsh.

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