The Sketch: Turnbull finds defeat in a happier place than Baird

Labor MP Anne Aly speaks to Malcolm Turnbull yesterday. Picture: Kym Smith

With the same-sex marriage plebiscite collapsing around it, the government at least seemed cheerier in the face of defeat than NSW Premier Mike Baird did.

This was admittedly not a feat of any magnitude, given Baird spent his greyhound-themed press conference yesterday looking like he would have had a better time performing his own autopsy.

Besides, why dwell on the plebiscite too long when there were older wars to continue?

None were waged quite so lip-smackingly as Scott Morrison, who declared himself only too glad to receive a question from Labor on deficits. “They wrote the book on deficits!” he thundered with a satisfaction that not even flashing neon could have rendered more obvious.

The Treasurer stopped short of going down the Joe Hockey route of personally baiting Wayne Swan, but the lingering ex-treasurer made the face of someone trying to stomach a dud joke from a Christmas cracker.

Having already copped a string of warnings from the Speaker, it was clearly safer to tweet, so his fingers went straight to the iPad. “Liberal plan is just more trickle-down,” Swan typed. Not the zippiest line he’s fired in anger; perhaps he is keeping his powder dry.

There was more zest as Barn­aby Joyce and Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon continued to prosecute their epoch-long biff. “Before I recognise the member for Hunter,” began Speaker Tony Smith, to which Joyce retorted: “He’s hard to recognise because he never stands up.” He offered a few more thoughts on this theme until Smith cracked. “The Deputy Prime Minister is warned!”

Fitzgibbon made a customary observation about Joyce’s creative relationship with Hansard.

Opening up another front, ­Anthony Albanese asked Tourism Minister Steve Ciobo if a rise in passenger movement charges — something Ciobo decried in ­August — had left him looking like a goose. Props to Ciobo for commencing: “I thank the member for his question.” Labor backbencher Rob Mitchell tried to help: “Honk once for yes, twice for no.”

For Albo at least, the science was settled and a press release was soon issued: “Minister confirms he is a goose.”

Yet, amid all this, there was a moment of detente. It came when Labor’s new member for Cowan, Anne Aly, grilled Malcolm Turnbull about the pitfalls of the NBN in one of her electorate’s suburbs.

The PM sounded like he was trying to be helpful, which isn’t one of question time’s stronger traditions. While government colleagues waited to talk with him at the end of question time, Turnbull ­approached Aly for a one-on-one chat — a little after-sales service.

After a few minutes, they ended with those formal little nods that look more like bows performed from the neck up, and parted looking thoughtful.

And at least a ­million times happier than Baird.