Decorum deserted in day of the dills

A censored version of a protester’s sign at Tuesday’s Climate Emergency Rally at Parliament House. Picture: Kym Smith

It shall go down in history as the day of the dills, after Speaker Tony Smith deemed the term acceptable parliamentary language.

“I would appeal to the member for Hunter (Joel Fitzgibbon) to support the government initi­a­tives reaching out to farmers and stop being such a dill!” Scott Morrison declared during question time.

“That’s offensive to dills,” Labor backbencher Rob Mitchell boisterously objected.

“I would rather the discourse be better,” Speaker Smith mused on the herbaceous language.

“I did very much think about asking the Prime Minister to withdraw. The only reason I didn’t is, of terms that have been used — not so much in questions recently but speeches and 90-second statements — I do have to say the term the Prime Minister used was very much at the lower level of some of the other terms being used. And I will not repeat them.”

It was a green light for dill-like behaviour. And boy, did our politic­ians deliver. Energy Minister Angus Taylor tried to claim the Snowy hydro as a Liberal Party achievement until Anthony Albanese interjected: “Ben Chifley was no Tory. You opposed it, your lot.”

There was Cities Minister Alan Tudge, who, when given a free kick about “congestion-busting infrastructure”, dedicated three minutes to “the notorious Indooroopilly roundabout”.

Peter Dutton used his Dorothy Dixer to highlight Labor’s border protection policy … from six years ago. “You’re the government, you dill!” Labor’s Tim Watts helpfully reminded him.

A row behind the frontbench, in the TV splashback zone typic­ally reserved for the most enthu­siastic of nodders, Assistant Minister for Vocational Educa­tion­ Steve Irons blinded the press gallery, unaware that his iPhone’s torch light was on. This prompted a Benny Hill-style sil­ent kerfuffle between him and outer ministry neighbour Scott Buchholz as they tried to turn it off.

A man wears a Scott Morrison papier-mache head. Picture: Getty Images

Youth Minister Richard Colbeck spent 40 seconds mute on his feet as he flicked through notes, unable to answer Labor’s Senate question time query about youth unemployment numbers.

Then there were the Greens, who spent the morning on the front lawns around their grounded hot-air balloon. Leader Richard Di Natale’s high hopes to fly his “carbon-­neutral” prop over the heads of every politician had been deflated.

After emailing supporters last week asking for $10,000 to get the stunt in the air, his balloon bubble was burst by Speaker Smith and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority slapping a last-­minute, month-long flight ban over the building. Instead, protesters were confined to the grass in the less sexy authorised assembly area.

“Scott Morrison won’t be able to keep our voice silent,’’ Di Natale­ told the small crowd that included a man wearing a Mor­rison papier-mache head and brandishing a “Climate Emergency? Fake News” sign.

A woman behind a banner posed for photographs with a small child on her shoulders, holding a sign that read: “Un-f..k my kids future.” Only hers wasn’t ­censored.

Probably the biggest dill of all.