Bite of the Apple

IT is with sublime timing that freshly minted Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd will be returning to the US.

IT is with sublime timing that freshly minted Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd will be returning to the US.

After hitting Washington this Friday for various important chats, he'll be heading to New York, where he'll be at the UN for a week. Happily, this will allow him to mark two important dates in the Big Apple: his birthday and the seventh anniversary of his celebrated visit to Scores. If Rudd opts to return to the strip club ("new and improved", according to the only bit of the Scores website we were brave enough to read), who'll blame him? It did such wonders for him last time.

Undercover agent

KEVIN Rudd may have more or less returned to his normal programming (Strewth, yesterday), but not quite so Barnaby Joyce, who was overcome by reticence yesterday (true!) during an interview on Sky News with David Speers. Joyce opted, on the grounds it was "hearsay", not to comment on this organ's report about Andrew Robb keeping Joe Hockey in the dark on costings and whatnot. Joyce, being Joyce, fleshed out for Speers the possible dangers: "I could say on hearsay that someone told me you don't change your underpants, David." Well, that's nearly the same as the nation's almost finance minister withholding information from the almost treasurer.

Sharp as a Flint

IT seems the Australian Republican Movement has decided that when it comes to winning the heart and mind of noted monarchist David Flint, a new approach may be in order, and it's one that cleverly combines elements of tough love with a multiple choice quiz. After Flint penned a piece the other day about Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams visiting Australia in 1999 and urging a yes vote in our referendum on the republic, Flint received an email from ARM national media director David Donovan. It reads "When did Gerry Adams come to Australia in 1999 and when did he ask Australians to vote yes to the referendum? No one seems to be able to find any record of either event. Are you quite mad, a habitual liar or just an idiot?" It took us two seconds to discover Adams visited Australia for eight days in February 1999; we used the internet. As for the other matter, here's a snippet from The Sun-Herald at the time: "Mr Adams also urged Australians to vote yes in December's republic referendum. 'I believe in the republic as the democratic form of society,' he said. 'I don't have time for monarchies of any kind.' " We hope that helps.

Perfectly reformed

CAMPAIGN finance reform has been snarled up in NSW cabinet for weeks, but Premier Kristina Keneally will receive a "giddy-up" today from her immediate predecessor, Nathan Rees. Rees, who made integrity in government a focus of his 14 months in the top job, will be speaking at the University of Sydney law school today, arguing the time has come for reform. "Large-scale donations from corporations and high-network individuals corrode people's trust in the political system," Rees tells Strewth. "The integrity of the system has to be watertight." Other subjects he plans to touch on include the GFC, Australia's obsession with surpluses and the reform agenda he was pursuing until he was, er, afforded the opportunity to not continue as premier. All important messages, but with Keneally's predecessors Bob "The blogger" Carr, Morris Iemma and Rees spending so much time on the air, it's getting hard to hear the Premier herself.

O'Farrell hits stride

ON the other side of the NSW political divide, state Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell is limbering up to join a couple of mates walking from Mudgee and Sydney to raise money for multiple sclerosis research. O'Farrell's joining them for 27km of their odyssey and while it's a modest distance compared with John Faulkner's recent bush bash for charity, it still sounds like a long way: our walk to the cake shop, multiplied by roughly a million. O'Farrell has not set Strewth's mind at ease with his explanation of his training regime: "Moderation in all things, except those instruments of pain found in gyms." Unlike South Australian Premier Mike Rann, it appears O'Farrell is in a humane mood and will be sparing us the Lycra. More at m2s.gofundraise.com.au.

Carry On baggage

IT was but a small, throwaway line to steer us clear of double entendres when we discovered bikini-clad Staci Child had posed with a ballot box in Zoo Weekly (Strewth, yesterday), but it's got us in trouble with our colleague Rowan Callick: "I must admit to being shocked by the casually insolent reference to the masterful Carry On series. Kenneth Williams as Julius Caesar shouting, "Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!" Sid James as Henry VIII, Barbara Windsor as Anne Boleyn seeking thrillingly to evade his chopper. And of course the brilliant prophetic analysis of geo-strategic challenges in Afghanistan, in Carry On Up the Khyber. Serious cinema buffs will have been appalled by such a slur." If anyone's looking for us in the meantime, we'll be in the doghouse.