The Sketch: in the midwinter of our diss content, a balls-up

If insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly but expecting a different result, optimism may be insisting to 600 people armed with smartphones in a booze-laden room that everything they’re about to see and hear is off the record.

Such optimism was high in Parliament House’s Great Hall on Wednesday night as the Midwinter Ball got under way. An annual event organised by the press gallery, its ultimate aim is to raise money for charity, but the road to this lofty destination is paved with frocks, tuxedos, a couple of amusing videos starring the denizens of the building, and a brace of piss-taking speeches.

Of course, one of the speeches was Malcolm Turnbull’s and finding the cone of silence as porous as a cabinet meeting, it made its way to the human Tannoy that is Laurie Oakes. It was a speech filled with self-deprecation and a couple of risque moments, a bit of oratory rendered even funnier by the stark contrast of another on the night.

But there was only one bit that was destined to go viral: the bit in which he turned Donald Trump impersonator in order to mock himself and the US President. In Shakespearean terms, now is the midwinter of our diss content. The last time Turnbull generated this level of excitement via a Midwinter Ball leak was in 2009. He was opposition leader then and passed some of his evening by heavying a guest at a neighbouring table: Kevin Rudd’s economics adviser Andrew Charlton. The subject of this unsolicited chat was the OzCar scheme, which enjoyed greater fame as Utegate. As you will recall, this did not pan out well for Turnbull Leadership Version 1.0.

The melancholy duty fell to Wayne Swan to opine: “We all know there’s good Malcolm and bad Malcolm, but I think the bad Malcolm turned up at the ... ball the other night.”

(It was quite the night. One of Sophie Mirabella’s new staff members went on a grope-a-thon so extensive and so efficient it’s amazing the Productivity Commission didn’t have a chat with him.)

In balls past, Rudd has delivered two speeches — one of which enjoys a niche fame for its humor nullius approach, and one that united the disparate themes of China and rodent-copulation. So you’d think Turnbull might be feeling a little hard done by in comparison — were it not for the fact that he sounded pleased by his speech’s fame when he went on 3AW yesterday.

Some have suggested the best cure for leaky balls is to ape the White House correspondents dinner, at which the president roasts everyone and everything is on the record.

But it’s clearly not for everyone. Certainly not Trump; he didn’t go this year.