The K to success

WHEN Bill Shorten gets stuck into the government, it’s in a tone best characterised as Somewhat Concerned of Moonee Ponds.

AS has been noted here once or thrice, when Bill Shorten gets stuck into the government, it’s in a tone best characterised as Somewhat Concerned of Moonee Ponds. Occasionally this is larded with a joke that then gets repeated more relentlessly than Midsomer Murders and Tony Abbott slogans. Thursday, for example, found him riffing on Clive Palmer’s “secret” Chinese dinner with Malcolm Turnbull and Treasury’s Martin Parkinson with references to peking ducks and lame ducks. On and on it went until a journo uttered the press conference equivalent of a safe word: “Jokes about dinner aside …” So all in all, Shorten’s lively and laser-guided budget reply speech stands out like a sunflower on an iceberg. One journalist probed the mystery yesterday:

Journo: “Was your budget reply speech written by Paul Keating?”

BS: “The budget reply speech was a statement of Labor values. I was very grateful for the great reception it had and I’m very grateful for the ongoing advice of many in my caucus and many former great Labor people including Bill Kelty and Paul Keating.”

J: “Is he wittier than you?”

BS: “I beg your pardon?”

J: “Is he wittier than you?”

Shorten didn’t answer this, instead brightly noting his Keating fandom and Joe Hockey non-fandom.

Getting out of hand

IT at least made for a change to hear a Laborite praising a Laborite after a week in which Tony Abbott and his troops repeatedly hearted Bob Hawke as a way of bludgeoning their opponents (an echo of Labor’s late onset John Howard love). Nothing, however, could trump the unexpected majesty of Health Minister Peter Dutton’s addition of Graham Richardson to the pantheon of approved Labor greats.

It’s not like that

TONY Burke would like you to know that when he likened Bronwyn Bishop to Harry Potter character Dolores Umbridge, it wasn’t to call her a witch; no anti-carbon-tax placard-waver is he. In his weekly email of reflection, he wrote that just about everyone in the series is a witch or wizard: “The significance of Dolores Umbridge is this: small stature, impeccably dressed, perfect manners, extremely powerful, and truly terrifying to her enemies. If only she’d compel the PM to undertake the same punishment given in Order of the Phoenix and write repeatedly ‘I must not tell lies’.” Needs a bit more magic.

Dept of Chutzpah

“HOW do you succeed in politics? To paraphrase US general Norman Schwarzkopf, have a good plan and execute it violently. Do not be like the Coalition and have a confused plan that you implement incompetently.” These words were written by Julia Gillard’s former communications director John McTernan — really! — in last Sunday’s Sun-Herald. We have our fingers crossed for a sequel tomorrow.

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