Strewth: The coronation

Michelle Landry’s whip is for the purpose of ‘keeping the boys in line’.

And so, bearing a whip to help maintain the air of kink so firmly established by her colleague George Christensen on the cover of Fairfax Media’s Good Weekend last year, Nationals MP Michelle Landry arrived with unsurprising news for journalists: Michael McCormack had been voted leader. The whip, she added, was new and for the purpose of “keeping the boys in line”. Then she invited the hacks into the partyroom, though a small delay had them clogging the corridor, much to the dismay of one of the ever vigilant security guards. Then it was inside for a viewing of the freshly recalibrated team assembled before the wall of portraits of former leaders including Arthur Fadden, who looks as though a cherished old joke has suddenly resurfaced in his memory and he can’t wait to share it with the photographer. All those black-and-white prints certainly provided a contrast for Barnaby Joyce’s bonce, which glowed a half-hearted scarlet and looked as out of place in the back row as beetroot on a pavlova. (Former chief Nat Tim Fischer emerged to advise McCormack to put in some time each week in Parliament House’s meditation room. Which is courageous.)

George has a shot

The jolliest moment came when McCormack was quizzed about George Christensen’s selfless, last-minute nomination for the top job, which put unexpected spice into what is normally the tidy final part of a Nats leadership vote. McCormack responded by bringing Christensen forward to celebrate his get-up-and-go spirit (if not so much his get-up-and-go-away-from-the-Coalition spirit, as spelled out last weekend). Then he gave a nod to temporary backbencher Darren Chester: “We’re both former journalists. I’m not sure what that says about us.” Chester was a TV journo and McCormack a newspaper editor, albeit one of the rare ones who still has one of his columns much read a quarter century after it was first written. Yes, it was a stridently homophobic screed for which McCormack now apologises at metronomic intervals. (And yes he reflected his electorate’s wishes and voted yes in the same-sex marriage vote.) But still a breakthrough in its own right.

Hacking it

Over in the Libs, Malcolm Turnbull is also a former journalist, as is his predecessor, Tony Abbott, whose leadership he, ah, spiked. And as McCormack reminded everyone, so was the old Country Party’s first leader William McWilliams. Country member, No 1, if you will. As the Australian Dictionary of Biography puts it: “Trained for the teaching profession, William at 20 became a journalist on the Tasmanian Mail, then joined the Examiner as parliamentary reporter … At 27, McWilliams was editor of the relatively radical Launceston Telegraph, advocating unimproved land taxes and reduced custom duties.” Later, he bought the Tasmanian News. And in parliament, one of the things he opposed federal expenditure on was the construction of a capital in the bush — or, in other words, the splendour we now know of as Canberra.

All hands on deck

Marking the day a different way, Melbourne radio station 3AW derailed a few trains of thought with the wording of the following tweet: “Done — Michael McCormack elected new Nationals leader and Deputy PM. He beat off George Christensen, who put his hand up at the last minute.” This was amended, with the “off” blushingly cut loose and sent to drift off into the ether.

Taking a shot at George

Labor’s Murray Watt celebrated the Nationals’ special day by giving a presser in which, if the transcript is anything to go by, Watt played all the roles himself. This at least gave him space to towel a fellow Queenslander without interruption: “George Christensen is a gutless wonder. He’s a wuss and he’s an embarrassment to all Queenslanders. It’s time he actually followed through on his threats.” So he was probably as surprised as anyone at Christensen’s bold play for the top job.

Powder, power, bollard

Among things learned from Senate estimates yesterday was that on at least one occasion suspect white powder in parliament has been tested with the old finger-and-tongue method; $27,520 is being spent investigating a rogue retractable bollard; and nearly a half-million spent keeping Australian Border Force Commissioner Roman Quaedvlieg on leave — what you might call a compulsory Roman holiday — while they investigate if his girlfriend’s career has benefited improperly from their relationship; another reminder that bollards ultimately weigh less on the public purse than bollocks.

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