Julia Caesar?

ON Nine's Sunday program, Laurie Oakes had a bit of fun but no luck trying to get Julia Gillard to admit to prime ministerial ambitions.

ON the Nine Network's Sunday program yesterday, Laurie Oakes had a bit of fun but no luck trying to get Julia Gillard to admit to prime ministerial ambitions (the speculation was "froth and bubble", according to the DPM). Over at the ABC's Insiders Julie Bishop was telling Barrie Cassidy that Gillard would be "disastrous" as PM and, curiously, felt "sad" about the expulsion of Queensland Liberal Michael Johnson. However, the best fun was on Sky News's Sunday Agenda where Barnaby Joyce was in sizzling form. Asked by Helen Dalley about the 65 bills shovelled through the Senate last week, Joyce was off in a flash. "This just goes to show that not only have they stuffed up the school halls, stuffed up the ceiling insulation, got us into a mountain of debt, but they can't even manage their own house. Sixty-five bills in the last week! How are we going to have a diligent process with that? That's hopeless. It's pathetic. This is the Labor Party - everything's a rush, everything ends up as a stuff-up, and every reply is an excuse."

Little Right lies

WAS Joyce being flirtatious with Dalley during the Sky segment? Having danced around the question of Tony Abbott's honesty, Joyce said: "What you want in any relationship . . . is that if at a time you have not been completely and utterly straight, that you fess up to it and say so." Dalley mentioned Joyce's remark about the difference between talking to a lover and a checkout chick. "I'm saying the issue you say at the height of passion in the middle of a debate. If I'm in a roaring argument with you, Helen, the things I say at the height of passion in the middle of the debate can be extended to a point that I wouldn't say the same thing to a lady when I'm checking through my groceries."

Dalley: "So which is the Australian electorate, the lover or the checkout girl?"

Joyce: "Well it's up to you to decide that. If you're saying something in the heat of passion, then I suppose you're in the lover fraternity. And if you're saying something in a clinical format, we'll take it as the checkout fraternity."

Old news

THE Sydney Morning Herald's interest in Labor right-wing powerbrokers Joe Tripodi and Eddie Obeid is becoming an obsession. On Saturday, the SMH splashed with news the duo had overruled NSW Premier Kristina Keneally when she planned to elevate Environment Minister Frank Sartor into the transport portfolio, following the sudden resignation of David Campbell. The Australian had reported 24 hours earlier that the Premier offered the transport gig to Sartor on Thursday evening. However, Sartor sidestepped the poisoned chalice. It is believed it was Keneally's first knock-back since about 1979.

Textual healing

A NEAT ploy by The Spectator Australia editor Tom Switzer sees this week's Diary page go to the ABC's Europe correspondent Emma Alberici, a case of giving the ABC space in the pages of one of Aunty's chief bashers. Alberici, a rising ABC star, scored an early morning interview with new British Foreign Secretary William Hague. "Just days earlier, the then foreign secretary, David Miliband, had told my colleague Barrie Cassidy that his government preferred to use text messages to keep in touch with its Australian counterparts. When that interview was over, Miliband asked the crew to pass his regards on to Kevin [Rudd] and Stephen [Smith], to which the sound recordist (who happened to be my husband, Jason McCauley) quipped: 'Why don't you send them a text?' In our interview, Hague said Australians were real friends, not virtual ones, and no amount of technological wizardry could replace a face-to-face meeting with them." Hague has promised he will visit Australia within the next 18 months.

Uncharitable cause

NOT only does pop singer Bob Geldof say silly things about Australia, he's in danger of disappearing up his own fundament. Piers Akerman got it right in Friday's Daily Telegraph: "Fly-in, squawk, defecate, fly-out, squawk." (By the way, Geldof is not entitled to call himself "sir"; his KBE is honorary.) There are reports saying Geldof has received large payments for his speaking engagements. The sum of $100,000 has been mentioned. But he has avoided questions on the subject by avoiding the press. On Friday two journalists were "granted" access on the condition they did not ask personal questions. The reporters were later told they were not welcome and a request to speak to one of Geldof's people would happen "if he wants to speak to you".

Mature student

WHEN Kevin Rudd recently visited his old uni, the Australian National University, he noted he'd been back to the campus so often that he should renew his student membership. So, on a weekend visit, vice-chancellor Ian Chubb presented the PM with a student card with his original student number: "It is your original student number but not your original student photograph," Chubb told the PM. The card describes Rudd as a part-time student but doesn't entitle him to cut-price movie tickets.