A Gaddafi too far

WITH some help from Peter Dutton's bold vision and the creative input of Craig Emerson's office, Strewth firmly established the Trade Minister as Muammar Gaddafi yesterday.

WITH some help from Peter Dutton's bold vision and the creative input of Craig Emerson's office, Strewth firmly established the Trade Minister as Muammar Gaddafi yesterday.

Or we thought. Let it suffice to say our nose was a little out of joint yesterday when Lib Sophie Mirabella tried to take Emmo's hard-won Gaddafi status and confer it on Julia Gillard instead. 3AW broadcaster Neil Mitchell was also aghast (though possibly in a slightly different way):

NM: "Is the debate getting out of control here?"

Tony Abbott: "I think people are entitled to be passionate about this big new tax [huzzah!] that the Prime Minister wasn't honest about before the election but in the end we are a democracy, we do respect each other and it's important that we convey our anger and our rejection of this new tax in appropriate ways."

NM: "And saying she's as deluded as Gaddafi is not appropriate . . . it's pretty offensive, isn't it? Gaddafi is a madman."

TA: "Look, yep, he's right out there."

Helpfully, Barnaby Joyce chipped in later on Sky News to opine that Gaddafi-Gillard comparisons were unfair, as Gaddafi was a much better dresser. But seriously, who among us could measure up to the Colonel?

Abbott's inner Keef

LET'S move on from Gaddafi and get in touch with Tony Abbott's inner Keef. Behold Keith Richards in his memoir, Life, as he reflects on the mania of fans during the Rolling Stones' first tour of Britain in 1963: "Usually it was harmless, for them, though not always for us. Amongst the many thousands a few did get hurt, and a few died. Some chick [on the] third balcony up flung herself off and severely hurt the person she landed on underneath, and she herself broke her neck and died. Now and again, shit happened." It all begins to make sense.

Rocky for sale

WHILE we're speaking of Rolling Stones and shit happening (or ordure occurring, for the more polite), we ought to mention that Christchurch resident Phil Johnson is auctioning off Rocky, the 30-tonne boulder that was dislodged by the earthquake and performed a large-scale break-and-enter operation on his house. Notes Johnson: "Rocky will enhance your 'indoor outdoor' flow considerably, especially if you load him in through the garage roof like we did." All dough raised goes to the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal.

Gillard sees red

WHEN Julia Gillard wasn't banging on about Bill Gates during the launch of her carbon tax sales pitch last week, she was reminding us that Australia's is not a soviet command economy, and we are grateful. She did say the soviet bit rather a lot, though; should we feel reassured, or suspicious the PM was protesting just a little too much? Senator Cory Bernardi appears to be leaning towards the latter and asked in the Senate yesterday if the carbon tax counted as a form of socialist wealth distribution. After an unhelpful suggestion from Kim Carr that parliament's only socialists lurk in the ranks of the Nationals, Penny Wong assured him flatly the answer was no. (In a spooky twist, we discovered moments after this exchange that former Howard minister Peter "I cover the waterfront" Reith has as his Twitter avatar a photo of him on Red Square. Hmm . . .)

Barnett figures it out

WEST Australian Premier Colin Barnett was shrugging off ABS data yesterday showing his booming state's economy had actually contracted by 0.4 per cent in the December compared with the previous quarter."The WA economy is not contracting," he told journalists. After a pause, one hack countered bravely: "That's not what the Bureau of Statistics is saying." Barnett was not having it: "Well, I'm telling you it is not contracting; just look around," he said. Asked how the ABS could fluff yesterday's figures, Barnett replied with the barest hint of a smirk: "Well, they can do that sometimes." Given that the young Barnett once toiled for the ABS, we'll bow to his experience.

Odd March of time

THERE'S some eerie wrinkling of time going on at federal Parliament House. For example, on Tuesday, when most of us were under the impression March had arrived, some visitors' passes were being stamped February 29. But that's just the tip of the iceberg (no, this isn't a Peter Costello gag). As recorded by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, September 14, 2010, saw the advent of the second Gillard ministry, the result of the post-election reshuffle. Australia Day brought us a little tweaking and, voila, the third Gillard ministry. Then, as the DPMC notes, there was another tiny tweak last month that resulted in . . . the second Gillard ministry? Perhaps not enough of a mystery to squeeze a twee ABC series out of, but perplexing nonetheless. Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham, however, is happy to share his theory with Strewth: "Maybe Julia Gillard is trying to wind back the clock on her government in the hope that it'll hold off Greg Combet, Bill Shorten or whoever's next in line a little longer." If the numbers keep going backwards at this rate, Kevin Rudd could be PM by Christmas.

James Jeffrey