The Sketch: Cash never on menu, if unplugged Price is right

Melissa Price in question time yesterday: ‘I’m very concerned that president Tong has been offended in any way’. Picture: AAP

The government may be struggling to put a foot right this week, but it has made a discovery: you don’t need a boom microphone to piss off the neighbours.

Hark back to just over three years ago when Peter Dutton shared a Pacific island-themed global warming gag with Tony ­Abbott about how “time doesn’t mean anything when you’re about to have water lapping at your door”.

It’s fun to revisit the video, particularly the part where social services minister Scott Morrison alerts the jovial pair to the large object attached to a 3m pole: “There’s a boom (microphone) up there.” Time barely got a look in, the smiles evaporating in nanoseconds.

One person who reacted to Dutton’s gag at the time was ­Kiribati’s then president Anote Tong, who suggested he “search his own soul”.

Skip forward to Tuesday evening, where we find new Environment Minister Melissa Price at the same Canberra restaurant as Tong, who as Dutton could no doubt tell you is an advocate for action on climate change. Tong was dining with Labor senator Pat Dodson and a few other eyewitnesses. Price popped over to say hello.

And here’s where the accounts part company. In an unhappy missive sent yesterday to Price and cc’d to Morrison and Bill Shorten, Dodson accused the minister of telling Tong, “I know why you’re here. It is for the cash. For the Pacific it’s always about the cash. I have my cheque book here. How much do you want?”

Because the gods of political entertainment are a tirelessly generous bunch, Tong was in the public gallery to watch question time, officially welcomed by Speaker Tony Smith.

When she was eventually, inevitably invited to give an explanation, Price stressed she thought of Dodson as a friend, though this warm thought came with a cool footnote: “Some friend, I have to say.” On she rolled: “I’m very concerned that president Tong has been offended in any way. I have spoken to Senator Dodson today and asked him if he was able to provide me with a contact number for president Tong because I 100 per cent disagree with what he has said was the conversation.”

It was a loss for the nation that Tong had by this point left the gallery. How quickly things could have been cleared up.

As it was, it was all pulled off with out a single boom mic. With Price having delivered this breakthrough, Labor’s Mark Butler risked the possibility of being seen as greedy by trying to extract a ­second.

“Last week when asked how Australia would meet its Paris carbon reduction pollution targets she said it would build one billion trees,” he said. “Does the minister plan on sharing this environmental breakthrough with other ­nations?”

It took Agriculture Minister David Littleproud to get question time back on track by shouting at Labor for a bit. Evidently satisfied things were back to normal, Morrison called time.