Bruised but unbowed

MIKE Rann was not about to offer any sound bites yesterday on what it was like to be bashed across the head with a magazine during a $600-a-head Premier and cabinet dinner.

MIKE Rann was not about to offer any sound bites yesterday on what it was like to be bashed across the head with a magazine during a $600-a-head Premier and cabinet dinner.

Police have charged Richard Wayne Phillips after what witnesses called the "brutal assault" on the South Australian Premier at the National Wine Centre in Adelaide on Thursday night. Rann is co-operating with the investigation and thought it best to keep his public comments to a minimum. But those seeking the gory details of Bashgate need not be disappointed. Witnesses to the assault were more forthcoming, offering wildly exaggerated accounts to AAP of the "very, very nasty incident". Said a concerned Mike O'Reilly, "I saw somebody brandishing what looked like a rolled-up magazine. I was dialling triple zero and ringing the police." Another witness, Barrie Harrop, now a local hero for leaping on the attacker and holding him in a headlock, was similarly verbose. "It was pretty brutal," Harrop said. "The thumps were very loud." Rann was back at work today and his injury was less exciting than some witnesses' accounts. "I have only received minor bruising to the cheek," the Premier said.

A dressing down

POLITICAL sketch writer Annabel Crabb has written a letter in the latest edition of Black Inc's Quarterly Essay in which she tells of Malcolm Turnbull's reaction to her 25,000-word profile of him in an earlier edition. She says the Opposition Leader was gracious after reading the piece, offering the wry assessment that he was "sure it will bring many people a good deal of pleasure". But Turnbull did alert Crabb to two small errors in the profile: one a typographical mistake and the other a case of a journalist's imagination running a little too wild. "Contrary to my account, (Turnbull) did not visit the Playboy mansion to negotiate an Australian publishing deal on behalf of Kerry Packer," Crabb writes. "Actually, he travelled only as far as Playboy's offices in Chicago. Imagining Turnbull in dressing gown and pipe strolling the bunny-strewn grounds of the mansion, I got carried away with this story and failed to check the exact detail with him, which I regret." No doubt Turnbull regrets not being let loose among the Playboy bunnies aswell.

Politics a mug's game

LIBERAL senator Cory Bernardi of South Australia - former rower, publican, investment manager and entrepreneur - thought it was hilarious when he opened his newspaper yesterday and read the details of his memorabilia collection. But the senator would like to point out that he had a serious purpose when he put up a collection of Cory Bernardi caps, golf shirts, fridge magnets and mugs that he is offering up for sale online. It seems Captain Cory wanted to demonstrate to his Liberal colleagues the benefits of a service (www.cafepress.com.au) that produces such promotional material for no out-of-pocket cost. The website has been courting the business of politicians, with some success, thanks to Bernardi. "My colleagues were all contacted about it a few months ago and I received many emails of appreciation for advising them of the service," Bernardi tells Strewth. "I thought it was a great idea for fundraisers and promotes (in my case) my website too." Apparently mugs are the big sellers. "You'll be surprised to know the mugs sell quite well ... or should I say I have sold more than the zero I expected to sell."

Panel beaters

THE mugs aren't the only thing that are working to increase Bernardi's profile. He'll be appearing on ABC1's Q&A program next week but he certainly is not the headline act. That honour will go hands-down to the ladeez. Belinda Neal, Germaine Greer and Janet Albrechtsen will be on the panel, along with advertising agency chief executive Todd Sampson. The boys had better practise their lines, they're unlikely to get a word in.