Angus Taylor probe: Is it wheelie true … or is it just plain rubbish?

We need to get to the bottom of the wheelie bins!

Back on December 13, 2018, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller popped into the 2GB Drive studio. “Before I let you go, I just want you to share something with my listeners that I got out of you at a fundraising event earlier in the year,” host Ben Fordham said. “And that is that once upon a time when Scott Morrison, the now Prime Minister, was one of your neighbours, he used to collect your bins. If the bins were left out and they hadn’t been taken in by you, the bloke who’s now the most powerful person in the country used to get the bins and take them in … is that true?”

Fuller didn’t deny it. “He was the treasurer at the time,” he said. “He did tell me recently that he’s the Prime Minister now, and that should be Josh Frydenberg’s job, but he won’t take my calls! He is a neighbour of mine …. And I do wish him well, he was a very good neighbour.”

That same day, ScoMo called 2GB. We know because his office issued an official transcript.

“You have just been raised in a conversation with Mick Fuller, the NSW Police Commissioner,” Fordo said. “Yeah, good bloke,” ScoMo replied.

Fordo continued: “According to the commissioner … you used to bring his bin in … True or false?”

The PM laughed. He didn’t deny it. “That’s what good neighbours do,” he said, stopping short of belting out the theme to Neighbours. “Mick is a great bloke and that’s the Shire way.”

Snap cut to Wednesday, when suddenly Fuller dismissed the whole thing as hard rubbish. “It was a joke I had with Ben Fordham on the radio and Ben took that and probably used that.

“From my perspective, that was just a joke,” he backtracked at speed, his red and yellow bins in tow. “Of course he has never brought my bins in. I never had his number in my phone … I have never been to his house. I have never been to The Lodge. I have never had a personal invitation from him to join his family or friends. Our relationship is a professional one.”

In question time, Labor recycled its Angus Taylor attack into a phone probe between the PM and the top cop about the doctored doc.

Morrison reassured everyone that the call (which Malcolm Turnbull helpfully told Sky he “would not have made”) was OK … because he just did exactly what he told parliament he was going to do. “As I told the house four times yesterday, I was going to talk to the NSW police,” the PM, who happens to be the son of a retired NSW cop, explained.

“I don’t know who they thought I was going to call … Did they think I was going to call the parking infringements officer at the Sutherland Police Station? Maybe … I was going to call the Water Police or the Dog Squad … or perhaps the commander of the police band!” Boom tish! “I spoke to the police commissioner because I needed to know … That’s what I said I would do, that’s what I did, I've reported it back to this house. And I think that sets out the matter clearly.”

“Is Angus really worth this?” Labor’s Julian Hill heckled as the government moved to gag Labor for the second day in a row.