Strewth: Smile high club

‘One of the little quirks of life in South Australia’: ummm, okay? THAT photo of Nick Xenophon Team Senator Skye Kakoschke-Moore and a waxwork figure of Halle Berry.

It was on the 40th floor of Sydney’s Governor Phillip Tower that it happened. There, high above city streets feeling their first hint of damp after a September drier than a martini, Labor MP Terri Butler stood at the lectern near host Gerard Henderson and talked to the Sydney Institute audience about the merits of ignoring sane instincts and going into politics.

Columnist Gerard Henderson. Photo: AAP

It’s something Butler muses on at length in Labor of Love (Melbourne University Press; just send us the usual commission, Louise Adler). At one point she mentioned that her children had concluded her job was to go to Canberra and tell Tony Abbott to stop being naughty. A querulous expression momentarily creased Hendo’s features. “But Malcolm Turnbull is the PM,” he protested. Replied Butler, “He hasn’t made any impression on them.” There are those who assume Hendo is as capable of smiling as a rhinoceros is of shuffling a deck of cards. But once again he confounded the doubters and the Hendo pearlies flashed in all their splendour.

Repeat button

Sticking with that particular dynamic, it was at the fag end of Turnbull’s press conference yesterday that the question made its inevitable appearance. “Is Tony Abbott undermining you?” asked a journalist. There must be times when everything starts to strike Turnbull as being like Groundhog Day, only without the benefit of Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. Unlike Murray’s character, though, Turnbull seems to be losing the will or the power (or both) to change the narrative. “I’ll leave all the personalities to you to write about,” he said, echoing so many previous days. “I’m focused on delivering — I’ll tell you what I’m focused on, you can write whatever you like …” A kind invitation, to be sure. To be honest, we were hoping the PM would touch on Abbott’s goat-volcano equation. But the week is still young and we cling to hope.

Attorney-General Senator George Brandis. Photo: Kym Smith

Nothing personal

On Sky News, the Attorney-General wanted to make it clear he had not slammed a colleague’s fingers in a metaphorical drawer.

Samantha Maiden: “You gave a major speech on Sunday night saying that ministers needed to be mindful of respecting judges and respecting the legal profession in their public comments. This was interpreted — the headline of one story, ‘George Brandis slaps down Peter Dutton over un-Australian lawyers attack’. Were you slapping down Peter Dutton?

Brandis: “I didn’t refer to anyone in particular. I was making a point.”

So there.

It wasn’t just Halle Berry who copped the Skye Kokoschke-Moore treatment ... the Nick Xenophon Team Senator was also pictured with a waxwork figures of porn star Jenna Jameson.

Waxing physical

Anthony Albanese copped an uncomfortable insight into southern life from his hosts on FiveAA’s Two Tribes segment: “It’s become a bit of a thing here in South Australian politics, groping wax figures in your spare time. But you know, we just put that down as one of the little quirks of life in South Australia. You’ve got to make your own fun here in Adelaide.” Strewth has nothing to add at this stage.

For success, add G&S

Strewth has long considered Gilbert and Sullivan pillars of Western civilisation. (This is despite the time Mum called out our name when we were on stage in a production of The Sorcerer. Deeply mortifying, though not as much as when she punctuated a school production of Bugsy Malone with a booming, Hungarian-accented “THEY HAVE SHOT MY SON!” But we digress.) So to Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott, who made a brief foray into G&S territory at the National Press Club yesterday: “Great teachers change lives … For me, it was Mr Murray and Mrs Williams at Henry Kendall High School in Gosford. I was a very shy kid — lacking in confidence — so Mrs Williams made me go into the school production of The Mikado. Up there, on the stage, in front of everyone. And, as you can see, I don’t have stage fright any more.” For the sake of completeness, we trust Westacott’s business card carries the words: “A dignified and potent officer / Whose functions are particularly vital.”

Team players

The Twitter account of the Russian embassy in London is varied, ranging from news and diplomatic goings-on to photos from pretty corners of the sacred fatherland (“Good morning from Kislovodsk!”) and motivational quotes (“Better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them” — Chekhov). And spicing it all up is the occasional flash of sass. The latest came yesterday in response to a story in British tabloid the Daily Star: “England to take surveillance team to Russian World Cup amid spy fears.” The Russian embassy tweeted in response, “A football team would be a better option.”

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