Endangered species to left and right

Anthony Albanese with a large bilby. Picture: Gary Ramage

At 9.23am on Tuesday an email reminder went out from Environment Minister­ Sussan Ley’s office. It’s National Threatened Species Day and there’s an unmissable photo opportun­ity on offer.

Phew, this afternoon’s social media post was sorted!

Then at 10.56 a “reply all’’ hit the inbox of the entire building, from a policy adviser in Greens leader Richard Di Natale’s office: “Hi — in addition to those cute animals, will there be a taxonomic display of the recently extinct bramble cay melomys for all the MPs and visitors to admire in front of cameras?”

“Farkin Greens, it’s a farkin rat,” a Labor staffer exclaimed, as a Liberal ministerial winger noted this explained why the Greens don’t get invited to more events.

As Anthony Albanese reached to cuddle a koala, later spotted rubbing noses with Greens senat­or Sarah Hanson-Young, he was given a warning by Bob Katter.

“Be careful he doesn’t do anything,” Katter said, presumably about the animal’s propensity to pee randomly.

“He won’t do anything to me!” the Opposition Leader replied confidently.

“I’ve had people do that to me … a lot of you Labor blokes and Liberal blokes do that to me,” Katter­ replied, providing an image that won’t leave us quickly.

The koala didn’t make the Instag­ram cut. Instead, two snaps of the tiny Tassie devil — which Labor MP Julian Hill joked was so chill it must be on Valium — feat­ured on Albo’s account with the caption: “Meet my new #mate”.

Liberal MP for Chisholm Gladys Liu pats a koala during National Threatened Species Day. Picture: AAP

There was no snake this year — too obvious a joke — prompting one Labor MP to declare: “They should have brought more dangerous animals. We haven’t had a day this safe in parliament for ages!”

That was before question time. Endangered species Defence Industr­y Minister Melissa Price is in London, so Labor recycled old target Angus Taylor.

Borrowing a book from Peter “It is good to be in front of the cameras where I can smile” ­Dutton, the Energy Minister laughed off the party’s attempts.

“Labor is accusing me and my family of the heinous crime of being farmers in my electorate!” Taylor cried.

Unfortunately, slightly undercutting his argument, the transcription website Tveeder claimed instead of “farmers” he’d said “farm arse”.

When Albanese called on Scott Morrison to sack Taylor, he accid­entally opened the door for “Aldi Albo”, as he’s been dubbed by Libera­l MP Tim Wilson.

It appeared Labor was in bigger trouble than the eastern quoll, Tasmanian devil and the blue-tongue lizard. “With the number of Labor Party members from the NSW division who used to serve in Senator Keneally's former government that are in jail, you could establish a branch of the Labor Party at the Silverwater prison,” Scott Morrison fired across the chamber. The Coalition benches couldn’t control their glee!

Water Minister David Littleproud laughed so hard he went a shade of red only previously ­spotted on former drought envoy Barnaby Joyce.

Leader of the House Christian Porter also threw a few jibes, a sign he’s finally settling in to the big shoes left by Christopher Pyne.

“You should fully embrace Aldi and be good, be different,” he told Albanese as he shut down the attempt to suspend standing orders.

During the half-hour distraction tactic, Albanese looked across the dispatch box and said to the PM: “Let’s rumble.”

But it was Porter who snapped back: “It would be like fighting your way out of a plastic bag.”