Grope for power

THE NSW election literally became a race to the bottom yesterday after an independent candidate in Sydney's western suburbs accused a Liberal candidate of improper behaviour.

THE NSW election literally became a race to the bottom yesterday after an independent candidate in Sydney's western suburbs accused a Liberal candidate of improper behaviour.

Independent for Wollondilly Judith Hannan said her bottom was pinched while she was participating in a group photo with the other candidates at a forum last Wednesday. When she inquired as to the culprit, she says, Liberal candidate for Wollondilly Jai Rowell alleged the Liberal candidate for Camden, Chris Patterson, was to blame.

But both Liberals deny firmly they had pinched Hannan's bottom or dobbed in the other, and in a statement yesterday claimed that they had put the matter "in the hands of their lawyers". That reference to hands makes us feel a lot better.

Tweet feathers fly

THE NSW campaign continues to get down and dirty. Yesterday, Strewth sighted a tweet, allegedly from Byron shire mayor and Greens candidate for the upper house Jan Barham, that said: "Most Greenies I've run into are uni-educated - a step above you and your TAFE-educated cronies". The cry of the dispossessed - or at least the TAFE-educated - rent the Twitterverse, and the offending text was removed. All this led to some drama and very strong opinions expressed online, but Barham denies that she wrote anything like that and, furthermore, says she doesn't even have a Twitter account. As an ageing baby boomer, Strewth has to rely on gen Y colleagues for advice about Twitter, but we have been assured that in the past week, those who use the social network to follow various "out there" personalities - we're keeping the lawyers happy with that description - claim there has been a big switch in the past week from the Melbourne girl who takes nude pictures of AFL footballers, to Charlie Sheen.

Crazy about quotes

WHILE we're discussing Sheen, known globally now as a troubled US actor, there is a quiz on offer in an overseas publication on whether he or Muammar Gaddafi made certain quotes in the past few weeks. One is: "I have defeated this earthworm with my words - imagine what I would have done with my fire-breathing fists." Another: "These resentments, they are the rocket fuel that lives in the tip of my sabre." And another: "Every great movement begins with one man." A fourth, no doubt a favourite for Australia's band of dedicated monarchists, is: "I am like the Queen of England." For the record, the first three come from Sheen, the final one Gaddafi, but getting them mixed up is quite excusable.

Dam those fish

THE much-maligned "fish elevator" that enables fish to swim upstream despite the presence of a big dam is one of the weirdest pieces of environmental technology seen, but a judge ruled yesterday that it was effective. In the Federal Court in Brisbane, Justice John Logan yesterday dismissed an appeal by the Wide Bay Conservation Council against the use of the elevator at Paradise Dam near Bundaberg, which it had claimed just wasn't doing the job in protecting members of a vulnerable species of lungfish. A similar system was proposed for the since abandoned Traveston Crossing Dam. The elevator operates by having a fish - in this case, a "living fossil", the lungfish - swim into it at the bottom of a dam. It then travels up the face of the dam where it plonks the fish into the water in the dam. The fish then continues on its merry way upstream. Just how the elevator knows when to go is a mystery to Strewth. Since Premier Anna Bligh has been touting that Queensland is "open for business" after a summer of floods and cyclones, tourists could do worse than visit Paradise Dam and see fish travelling up the dam face to breed on the other side.

Hats and cossies

THINK of rodeos, think of the wild west or at least some home on the range with wide open spaces and wooden palings where everyone sweats a lot. You wouldn't think of the great indoors of the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre, but that's precisely where the National Finals Rodeo will be held over four days and nights from April 7 to 10. There's a synergy at work here: rodeo co-ordinator John Osborne says the championship will run at the same time and in the same precinct as the 2011 Australian Surf Life Saving Titles. "It will literally be reef meets beef," he says. We don't want to sound too much like John Wayne, but Strewth can't help but knock back the Stetson and wonder what the old-timers would make of a rodeo held in airconditioning.

Rob's not leaking

ALLEGEDLY independent federal MP Rob Oakeshott continues to advise the media on how to do its work, but what else to expect from a man who only recently yielded to media and community pressure and shaved off a dodgy piebald beard? But still from time to time, we're told, he wears brown shoes. At the National Press Club yesterday, His Robness commiserated that minority government made the press gallery's job harder because independents hardly leaked to it. "I wonder if it's easier to get a leak from a key minister," he said.

Andrew Fraser