Katter pillar

AS a natural spectacle, Bob Katter's momentous address yesterday was up there with a wildebeest migration.

AS a natural spectacle, Bob Katter's momentous address yesterday was up there with a wildebeest migration: vast, awesome from a distance and occasionally unnerving up close, churning up great clouds of dust as it went; all in all a superb effort from one of the blokes who, only the day before, was urging that question time answers should be capped at four minutes.

Indeed, we wonder whether we've all misinterpreted that facet of the proposed reforms and that the four-minute limit is not a maximum but a minimum. Part way through his verbal epic, Katter threw in an aside that if the other independents supported Labor he might as well, in the interests of stability; this at least proved Katter is able to turn on a paradigm. And then he kept going, words tumbling from his lips like great wads of tea leaves crying out to be read (or at least until one journo cheated and asked Katter if it all meant he was plumping for the Coalition). The transcript - once the hapless sweatshop slave-scribes manacled to their computers finish grinding it out some time later this month - will be visible from space (or at least from China, where we gather John Howard was watching it). It was, we imagined, a monolith of an oration that would stand undiminished and undwarfed for at least 1000 years. Then Rob Oakeshott opened his mouth.

Unstoppable Rob

THERE was a moment, right at the beginning, when it was possible to feel optimistic about Rob Oakeshott's speech, and that's when he quoted this line from the movie Highlander: "There can be only one." In the movie (a fun enough bit of fluff with Sean Connery; just steer clear of the unpardonable sequels), the "one" is the last immortal left standing after centuries of epic swordfights and ritual decapitation; was this what Oakeshott had in mind as he prepared to unveil his vision of our reshaped democracy? After all, he went on to say, "It's going to be ugly, but it's going to be beautiful in its ugliness." Then he said a whole lot more as he built up to his "juicy and sexy decision", without the mercy of breaking for an intermission. Watching from the other side of the planet, Therese Rein spoke for many with these two tweets: "Aaaaarghhh!!!!" and "And . . ?????" She scrubbed them a short time later but, happily, the internet appears to have been built with posterity in mind.

Sustainably upbeat

SUSTAINABLE Population Minister Tony Burke (presumably now feeling more sustainable) went against the grain and restricted his reaction to just two words, tweeting, "Playing Tubthumping." That would be the catchy Chumbawamba tune with the lyrics, "I get knocked down but I get up again/ You're never gonna keep me down" and "We'll be singing when we're winning". (There are other lyrics, namely "Pissing the night away, pissing the night away / He drinks a whisky drink, he drinks a vodka drink / He drinks a lager drink / He drinks a cider drink", but we're sure they're not pertinent.) So, was Burke dancing? Alas, no. "Sorry to disappoint," Burke tells Strewth. "It was the getting knocked down line that made me think to play it."

No joy for Joyce

AFTER the Oakeshott oration, Barnaby Joyce was on ABC News 24, sadly oblivious to the cheerful clots waving bits of paper (no, we couldn't read them) on the other side of the studio's glass wall. "Paradigm is near paradise in the dictionary," he opined, adding he'd be happy as "as long as it doesn't end up near prostitution". Listening to him hold forth in this fashion, we have to ask Tony Windsor the question: What's not to love?

Tailing Bob

EARLIER in the day, before anyone had made any announcement regarding their intentions, Bob Katter found himself attended to by a platoon of journalists and camera crews as he headed off to grab a coffee or some such. They accompanied him down a corridor, showering him with questions. Then Katter went to make good his escape and got into a lift, only to find the journos had followed in there as well. Our esteemed colleague Samantha Maiden put on an innocent face and said, "We were just going down as well."

Logies reruns

A NON-POLITICAL interlude, courtesy of Mumbrella, where Andrew Denton has asked a not unreasonable question: "With due respect to the late and the living Graham Kennedy and Bert Newton, I'm sick to [sounds like plucking] death of hearing them eulogised every Logies. They were 30 years ago. They were great. We've said they were great every year for 30 years. We've had so much fantastic talent since then. When are we going to pass the torch?"

Julia's year zero?

AS reaching for Adolf Hitler during an argument counts as forfeiting said argument, one must hunt further afield. So three cheers to Glenn Milne for this analogy on ABC website The Drum yesterday: "[Julia Gillard's] slogan was 'moving forward'. Like the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Gillard wanted to obliterate the past." This may constitute a Pol Pot and kettle moment.