Instant noodle classic

South Australian Treasurer Rob Lucas gas taken us back to Noodle Nation.

In the beginning were the words, and those words were Knowledge Nation. The words begat a flow chart (via prophets Barry Jones and Kim Beazley), and the flow chart begat derision as Liberalites — led by Peter Costello — gazed upon Labor’s convoluted graven image of the education sector and its relevant policy, and dubbed it “Noodle Nation”. Yea verily, the name stuck. That was in 2001, which is practically Old Testament now and clearly in need of a follow-up. Step forward South Australian Treasurer Rob Lucas, who has dazzled the state with this representation of his budget. While it may be tempting to look at this visual commotion and screech in a Terry Jones-like falsetto, “There’s a mess all right, but no Messiah”, but take a moment. Like one of those old Magic Eye images, the longer you stare the more you are rewarded. Look, a submarine! Behold, a shark’s fin! Lo, things that could be shoe prints or fat exclamation marks! Battleships! Light bulbs! A bunch of boxes connected to a … footbridge? Like being confronted with the oeuvre of Damien Hirst you may well find yourself wondering if this is art or something more ambitious.

Rob Lucas: Barry Jones and Kim Beazley, eat your hearts out. Picture: Matt turner

Let down at every turn

While seagulls shrieked through his press conference yesterday, Scott Morrison pumped out an anti-Bill Shorten rhyme: “Union-bred, union-fed and union-led”. Which could make for a winning slogan for the next union membership drive, come to think of it. Local MP Warren Entsch — or Entschy, as the Prime Minister kept calling him — came in at the end to exercise quality control.

Entsch: “Can I just say … sitting here listening, it’s disappointing you’ve got the Prime Minister of Australia standing here in Cairns at the university, and all the questions are being generated by the Canberra press gallery?”

Morrison: “That’s all right, mate.”

Entsch: “I’m sorry, with the exception of The Cairns Post. I think it’s a little bit disappointing, there are so many issues up here, local, that could have been addressed and we’ve wasted that opportunity.”

The end. While Entsch was being called Entschy, Bill Shorten was elsewhere enduring a journalist getting caught up in the heat of the moment and addressing him as “Mr Morrison”. This was duly recorded in the official transcript, accompanied by a terse “[sic]”.

Tennis serve

Could this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship? Yesterday, in the wake of Roger Federer’s defeat at the hands of a Brisbane boy, Scott Morrison tweeted: “John Millman, take a bow #Millmania.”

John Millman, take a bow #Millmania https://t.co/wcfaxCPox3

— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) September 4, 2018

And a couple of weeks ago, on the chaotic, fateful day before Morrison was catapulted into the top job over the head of you know who, Millman tweeted, “I’m a proud Queenslander … but not sure Peter Dutton is the answer …” It’s surely a harmony, of sorts.

Journey to inner space

When Strewth’s esteemed colleague and chum Milanda Rout was flying from Melbourne to Sydney the other day, she opted to pass the hour by reading One Hundred Years of Dirt, the book by another of our fellow toilers at this august organ, Rick Morton. Eventually she reached the chapter titled Alien Life and a fellow passenger trying to read over her shoulder asked in an American accent: “Could you read out that heading for me?” Rout obliged, then had to go on to explain to her fascinated neighbour that the chapter wasn’t actually about extraterrestrial life forms but was in fact part of Morton’s story of his childhood in outback Queensland, and how he survived it. We trust this was enough to spur on the neighbour — extravagantly tongued, fire-breathing, blood-spitting Kiss vocalist and bass player Gene Simmons — to go pick up a copy for himself.

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