Hotel Been There

DURING an onstage chat with Andrew Denton yesterday at a Sydney fundraiser for Lifeline, Julia Gillard talked about the hardships of travel during the campaign: the tens of thousands of kilometres by plane, the constant moving from hotel to hotel, and so on.

Denton: "I assume you have an awesome collection of shower caps and little soaps?"

Gillard: "No, well, you get to the stage where you think, 'It's just not worth taking them any more.' "

Later, Denton asked the PM what she and Tim Mathieson got up to during their first stay at Kirribilli House on Thursday night and, crucially, if they jumped on the beds. Said Gillard: "No, but Tim this morning had a fight with the coffee machine. And the coffee machine may have won round one."

Subject: whoops

AN enigmatic slip of the keyboard? Or concrete proof of the sinister ABC-Fairfax nexus? Here's the beginning of Kerry O'Brien's press release yesterday about his decision to leave The 7.30 Report: "After more than 40 years of reading other people's press releases, it's a very strange feeling having to write one about myself, but here goes. scarbone@ theage.com.au I have informed the ABC that I intend to leave The 7.30 Report in December after 15 very rewarding years as the program's editor and presenter." That's the email address for The Age columnist Suzanne Carbone. Moving on, after considering the possibilities - imagine Wilson Tuckey in the hot seat; it's easier to do than, say, picturing Maxine McKew - we're plumping for Shaun Micallef. Now that would be a new paradigm. You know it makes sense.

Interesting, eh?

WHAT'S the most diplomatic adjective to describe something that neither floats your boat nor cranks your tractor, but that you don't want to be seen slagging off? Let's take a quick lesson from the nation's diplomat-in-chief, Kevin Rudd. Asked in New York how he felt about returning to parliament next week after losing the prime ministership in June, Rudd said the experience would be "interesting". Perhaps Alex Somlyay would describe his telephone conversations yesterday the same way. Though we could be overextrapolating on both counts.

A rush on Rann

AS an ardent follower of South Australian Premier Mike Rann's Twitter feed (especially now he has started referring to the Book of Revelations, an unexpected bonanza), we'd like to announce a moment of a quiet significance late this week: Rann acquired his 10,000th follower. That's practically a cult. If you haven't yet, sign up and get Rann on his way to 20,000 followers. You won't regret it. Well, not much.

Speaker position

WITH the business of the Speaker and deputy Speaker still failing to come to order (weak pun licence No 5389), one of our decorated agents in the field (a Noosa field, to be more specific) told us about when Joan Child succeeded Harry Jenkins Sr as Speaker on February 11, 1986. Child was the first (and, so far, only) female federal Speaker and this was enough to cause some confusion, with one MP falling in a heap thus: "But Mr Speaker, um, Mrs Speaker. I'm sorry, I mean Madam Speaker." To which Child supposedly replied: "Please proceed. I have no sex in this position." But after a jolly time trawling through Hansard, the closest we could find was this stumble from Bill Hayden, following an amusing comparison of Ferdinand Marcos's Philippines with Joh Bjelke-Petersen's Queensland: "Mr-Madam Speaker . . . Or is it Speakerperson, to get the non-sexist terminology these days?" Still, Hansard does sometimes tidy up things a bit, so let's not dismiss the first version out of hand; there's enough disappointment in the world as it is. Leo McLeay, who would eventually succeed Child as Speaker, was that same day elected chairman of committees. Once sufficient congratulatory noises had been made, then prime minister Bob Hawke sought to soften the blow for National Party MP Clarrie Millar, who'd put his hand up for the gig as well.

Hawke: "I know that Clarrie will not take the vote as any adverse reflection upon him because I have no difficulty whatsoever in associating myself, in all respects, with the adulatory comments that were properly made about him by the leader of his party. He richly deserved them. As I have said before, he still has our respect and our affection."

Mick Young: "But not the numbers."

Replied Hawke: "But, as the leader of the house says, not the numbers."

Hobart 4 Oprah

FROM the Stoop to Conquer Department comes this message from Tasmanian senator Richard Colbeck: "A campaign is under way to serenade Oprah Winfrey into visiting Tasmania when the world's most popular talk show queen brings The Oprah Winfrey Show to Australia in December. 'En route to Oprah is a copy of Love in Tasmania , the song written by Robb Tait and Des Brown which waxes lyrical about the beauty and majesty of our island State,' Tasmanian Liberal senator Richard Colbeck said."