Strewth: Video games

Ed Husic and David Leyonhjelm offer their views of the campaign, after a fashion.

In a bijou of video art that was one of his live broadcasts on Facebook yesterday, Labor’s Ed Husic was hosting Bill Shorten, Richard Marles and others in his western Sydney electorate of Chifley. (Bless Mount Druitt.) Somewhere amid the jolly handful of seconds, Husic had Shorten’s press secretary Ryan Liddell on camera.

Husic: “Ryan, tell the people, what do you do for Bill?”

Liddell: “Not much.”

Husic (to camera): “Yeah, well, he beat me to that answer.”

Elsewhere in the political video art world yesterday, David Leyonhjelm popped out a video in which the role of superannuation is played by a cake, and the good senator himself restrains a pair of pugs called “Bill” and “Mal” from chowing down on it. So, only 547 days to go, give or take.

Same old, same old

Political transcripts often include a little precis of subjects covered. The last topic listed in a Scott Morrison transcript the other day is “same old Labor”. This is unduly modest. We get “same old Labor”, “same old tricks”, “same old Labor/Green coalition”, “same old Labor hypocrisies”, “same old divisions”, “same old chaos” … In fact, 21 iterations of “same old”. It’s as if he’s trying to tell us something.

Thinking & drinking

As we slog on with our daily Campaign Cocktails, reader Kevin Knight requests “a complete edition of the cocktails mentioned over the journey to be published at the end of the election campaign”. Lindsay Paulin,meanwhile, sounds ambitious: “I’m toying with the idea of trying each one on Saturday afternoon as a fitting end to a week of election news.” Let’s see how that pans out. In the meantime, two Campaign Cocktails in honour of the Australian Federal Police raids. First up, the Copper, into which go 1.5 shots of Jameson Black Barrel Irish Whiskey, 0.75 shots of lemon juice, the same quantity again of Irish spiced tea syrup, and a shot of pressed apple juice. Shake it with ice and strain into a rocks glass with fresh ice. Then there’s the Fig Leaf: a jigger of sweet vermouth, 2/3 of a jigger of light rum, the juice from half a lime and a dash of Angostura bitters. Shake with ice, strain into a glass. Maybe on Monday we’ll honour the Libs’ fallen candidate for Fremantle with the Bloody Sherry.

Staff movement

Following yesterday’s item about a papier-mache Barnaby Joyce, we should note that as of a bit earlier this year, Cambell Klose does not work for Greens senator Robert Simms, nor does he toil for New England Greens candidate Mercurius Goldstein. He is now with 350.org. Meanwhile, we hope the effigy went to a good home.