The right quaff

THE G20 meeting is fast approaching, but if the booze side of the catering hasn’t been quite sorted.

THE G20 meeting is fast approaching, but if the booze side of the catering hasn’t been quite sorted, McLaren Flat winery DogRidge is ready to help — with a case of its Shirtfront Shiraz. DogRidge has been making it since 2006, but since Tony Abbott’s slightly garbled but deeply felt vow regarding the Russian President, locals and customers have been calling it the Vladimir. (We gather one customer went so far as declare he’d be “Putin some away in the cellar”; we can only hope he immediately learned how a citizen’s arrest works.) According to winemaker Fred Howard’s tasting notes, “The shirtfront is a fair but ferocious straight-on tackle at speed stopping a player in their tracks and is as much a tradition of Australian football as high marks, meat pies and tomato sauce. A shirtfront leaves you stunned and in awe on the grass.” We gather this is more about the “wow” factor of the wine rather than a suggestion it will quickly get you so hammered you’ll be saying “you bet you are you bet I am”. (DogRidge makes another shiraz called the Pup. It pre-dates the Palmer United Party — or the Face Palmer United Party, as we’re coming to think of it — but it is semi-presciently described as “unrestrained but house-trained, full of the simple pleasures”.)

Stop the Moz

THE jury may be divided on Bronwyn Bishop’s speakership, but the verdict is surely easier when it comes to her sly sense of humour. Yesterday, after Scott Morrison had cudgelled Labor over boat turnbacks, Bishop demonstrated a turnback on Moz. Tony Burke had asked a cheeky question playing on reported disgruntlement in Coalition ranks over Moz’s alleged mission creep — hey, if 13 portfolios was good enough for Gough Whitlam — when up jumped Moz, raring to go. Bishop ruled it out of order and ordered Moz back to his pew before he was able to so much as curl his lip. After a moment of uncharacteristic uncertainty, he surrendered with a wave.

Relatively nice

FOLLOWING all the bipartisan Goughstalgia, we were back on familiar ground as Tony Abbottlavished praise on Bob Hawke (“the well-loved, well-respected”), praise he fashioned into a slipper to sink into Hawke’s heirs. As a faint echo, Health Minister Peter Dutton (such an enthusiastic interjector Abbott had to shush him at one point) went on to give Labor a slap across the face with a soft glove by praising Craig Thomson. Yes, it was a backhander, but it was still a surprise. Meanwhile, there is an anti-Dutton vandal of some persistence at work on the internet. Googling Dutton’s name on Monday would have produced a Wikipedia link and a box containing a bunch of photos of Dutton and an introductory paragraph that began, “Peter ‘Waste of sperm’ Dutton”. It lingered into Tuesday, but was gone on Wednesday, only to return yesterday. It’s a bit of a redundant sledge, though; given that any successful act of human fertilisation sees anything from 40 million to 1.2 billion little wrigglers left to cark it, all of us are, in a sense, a waste of sperm.

Titter ye not

WHEN audiences laughed at Frankie Howerd’s risque double entendres, he’d pin the blame entirely on their dirty minds. With this in mind, we examine a series of press releases on the government’s proposed higher education changes from Kim Carr, the opposition education spokesman. Or more accurately, opposition shoutsman. Earlier this month he sent out this: “Universities Australia changes its tune on Pyne’s dud package.” Then a few days back: “Tinkering won’t make Pyne’s package any fairer.” And then yesterday, amusingly enough at a time many of us were having breakfast, this: “Early indications show Pyne’s package is putting students off.” Presumably impatient with the pace at which this was all sailing into Carry On territory, Pyne popped on the metaphorical outboard with a press release headlined, “Carr goes off half-cocked on university applications.” The ball, as they say, is now in Carr’s court.

Au contraire

WHEN Penny Wong declared “I’m not a lawyer” in Senate estimates yesterday, it prompted a ripple of fact-checking that culminated in the conclusion, “But you are a lawyer!” “I’m no longer a lawyer, it’s so long ago,” she protested (albeit without the zest of Clive Palmer explaining either that he’s no longer a businessman, or why he couldn’t be bothered going to parliament.) “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Senator Wong,” George Brandis counselled almost gently.

AB will C you now

MENTAL image of the day: “Former cricket captain and Skin Cancer Network Ambassador, Allan Border AO, will be in Canberra on Tuesday to raise awareness of non-melanoma skin cancer among politicians during the Pollie Skin Check Day.”

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