More Mal time

As the days tick over Turnbull has reached a victorious bench mark, deafeating his arch-nemesis.

Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.

Malcolm Turnbull finally defeats his arch-nemesis Tony Abbott today. Yes, despite shocking Newspolls and leading the Coalition to the brink of the abyss last year, the Prime Minister has beaten Abbott’s record as prime minister by one whole day. Turnbull has, of this very moment, been in office for one year and 363 days. He’s still got a way to go to beat some of the other recent alumni of the Lodge. Turnbull is 207 days away from beating Kevin Rudd’s first run as head of government (there’ll definitely be more than enough Newspolls to get to the nasty 30 deadline before then). And there’s 371 days before Turnbull matches our first female prime minister Julia Gillard’s duration in the top job. If Turnbull really wants to push it, he’s got 6105 days to beat Robert Menzies’ undefeated record as prime minister. The prime minister will only be 79 years old by then, he should be fine.

Confession time

The Prime Minister was showing off his literary knowhow in question time yesterday with this Mark Twain quote: “As we know, as Mark Twain said, confession is good for the soul but bad for the reputation.” The only wee, tiny, insignificant issue is it’s possible Twain wasn’t the one who said it. People mix up Twain and great quotes all the time: “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter”; “The secret of getting ahead is getting started”; “I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog too”. He didn’t say any of them. The actual quote appears to be from the mouth of Thomas Dewar, 1st Baron Dewar, a Scottish distiller.

Bringing up baby

Assistant treasurer Michael Sukkar and his wife Anna brought their wee bairn Leo to Canberra this sitting week. And where better to bring a fledging Liberal Party child than to the arms of the great leader. Turnbull sent out a Facebook pic of him holding wee Leo and the Sukkars’ mobile phone at the same time. Some may think it brave for the PM to multitask after the brouhaha over him holding a beer while holding his granddaughter, little Alice Brown-Turnbull, in his arms at a Sydney Swans game. But personally, this writer thinks the Prime Minister, and indeed all people, should avoid babies completely because they smell bad and sound worse. Nothing personal, Leo.

Oz Day SA

It’s been a few weeks since two inner-city leftie Melbourne councils dumped Australia Day celebrations but it looks like they’ve given some interstate rivals a little opening. Wattle Range Council, in South Australia, is inviting residents from Yarra and Darebin Councils to hop on over to SA and join in with their January 26 celebrations. “We’re always looking at ways to attract people to the region,” Wattle Range mayor Peter Gandolfi told The Advertiser. Gandolfi says he wants the federal government, which stripped the Melbourne councils of their citizenship ceremonies, to know he’s A-OK to take Australia Day refugees.

Bernardi flies west

The federal MPs of the West Australian Labor Party like to spend a lot of time together in Canberra. There are quite a few of them (and if some polls are right, they’ll be plenty more at the next election). But social media was agog to see a new man in their midst: none other than Australian Conservatives leader Cory Bernardi. Labor member for Burt Matt Keogh circulated a Twitter pic on Monday of Bernardi fleeing a group photo of WA Labor MPs in their “Vote Yes” garb. Not the company you’d expect the leading traditional marriage campaigner to be spending much time with.

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