Pine for Kev

WHEN Julia Gillard planted a cutting from the Barcaldine Tree of Knowledge at the National Arboretum in Canberra yesterday, it brought back happy memories of Kevin Rudd planting a seedling there from Gallipoli's Lone Pine in 2008.

Rudd planting

WHEN Julia Gillard planted a cutting from the Barcaldine Tree of Knowledge at the National Arboretum in Canberra yesterday, it brought back happy memories of Kevin Rudd planting a seedling there from Gallipoli's Lone Pine in 2008.

While at yesterday's event, our colleague Ray Strange visited the site of the Rudd planting and discovered paradise had been paved. Had Gillard visited one night with a cement truck? Rudd's office tells Strewth: "While there have been unofficial reports of attempted ringbarking and one episode of attempted poisoning, Mr Rudd's tree is still doing very well." But where is it? Word from the arboretum is that Rudd's was probably one that was shifted slightly during construction work, but it neither came to harm nor vanished into the arboreal equivalent of a witness protection program.

Fair and Franklin

POLITICIANS are flat-out fond of level playing fields, so John Atkin, chief executive of the Trust Company, which runs the Miles Franklin Literary Award, has a question for Julia Gillard and Arts Minister Simon Crean. Why the special tax treatment for the Prime Minister's Literary Award? The PM's prize, worth a cool $100,000 to each of the four winners, is tax-free. The Miles Franklin, worth $50,000, is taxed as normal income, which sometimes forces the winner to pay tax for the first time in their career. "Why tax an award that is an act of personal philanthrophy?" Atkin asked at yesterday's Miles Franklin shortlist announcement. "It's chickenfeed that the government should be willing to forgo." Atkin will be writing to Crean to put his proposal for a "modest reform" in more corporate terms.

Costly faux pas

THE prospect of Barnaby Joyce moving to the House of Reps means Barnaby fever is spreading, and not just at Strewth. Before a crowd of boffins and bureaucrats yesterday, Science Minister Kim Carr announced a fresh pile of dough for the Australian Technology Network's new Doctoral Training Centre for Industry in Mathematics. But when he went to say $1 million, he had a Barnabism and out it came as $1 billion. As Carr commented, "You all got a bit of a surprise, then, didn't you - not half as much a surprise as Treasury will."

Hooray for Smee

WHEN art critic Sebastian Smee left the employ of this august organ for The Boston Globe, there may have been the odd flicker of envy amid the congratulations. Then, when the world economy went wobbly and the Globe appeared to be in danger of vanishing up its own masthead, envy turned to concern. The danger's passed, Smee is still at the Globe and now he has a Pulitzer. It's only fitting for a writer who has consistently shown as much love for his readers as he does for his subject. Take this glorious opening from a 2006 review in The Australian of an exhibition of Indian art: "Breasts of unimpeachable heft and bounce, bloody garlands of severed heads, a menagerie of wild animals and images of mesmerising spiritual intensity combine to make Goddess, the new show at the Art Gallery of NSW, the greatest exhibition mounted in Australia this year."

Take it as read

READER Sue of Perth is displeased with our amusement yesterday at the way journalists bombarded Tony Abbott with questions about Malcolm Turnbull's preferred opposition leader status in an opinion poll. Writes Sue, "No wonder the public despises journalists. You and your colleagues who are eagerly pointing out that latest poll indicates voters prefer Turnbull to Abbott slyly and cunningly avoid mentioning that it's Labor and Green voters who go for Malcolm." (Well, give or take lines such as this one that accompanied the poll in question yesterday: "Mr Turnbull is more popular with Labor and Greens voters than with Coalition voters.") Sue concludes, "You and your mob really are the pits." Which is probably pithier than our line in the offending item: "Episodes like this only serve to highlight why some people enjoy journalists as much as pelican vomit." Still, as it appears Sue will regard us as a scumbag of the lowest order unless we mention Turnbull is more popular with Labor and Greens voters than with Coalition voters, here goes: Turnbull is more popular with Labor and Greens voters than with Coalition voters. Sorry the pelican vomit didn't cover it.

James Jeffrey