PR martinet

STREWTH admires a man with a sense of mission that never flags through the ages (and no, not just Rob Oakeshott).

STREWTH admires a man with a sense of mission that never flags through the ages (and no, not just Rob Oakeshott).

In this spirit, we present special Strewth guest star James Rickards, the PR boss for James Hardie Industries during the war to get it to cough up (yes, that is a pun) compensation for asbestos victims. As part of the gig, Rickards, who also used to teach spin to students at Sydney's Macleay College, once banned Ean Higgins, our colleague who was covering the case, and handed over a 50-page file on him to Higgins's editor. Rickards has since moved to Xstrata, where he was undoubtedly delighted to field questions this week from Higgins, who wanted to gauge the feelings of miners at the company's West Wallsend mine about their local member, Greg Combet, becoming Climate Change Minister. Rickards told Higgins he would not be allowed on site. When Higgins asked if he would like to ask his bosses about that, Rickards replied the chief executive was unavailable and, in any case, "I make these decisions." We believe that translates biblically as, "Go forth and beget yourself."

Paradigm sworn in

THERE were a few minor disappointments yesterday as the new paradigm was pulled into shape. At the swearing-in at Yarralumla, Kevin Rudd was seated as far from Julia Gillard in the front row as was possible without putting him on the other side of the wall (though Rudd did compensate by beaming so brightly as he uttered the words, "So help me God", it came across more as a dare than a plea). Then there was the decision to sing only the first bit of the national anthem; as the ABC's Chris Uhlmann noted, this deprived us of hearing the ministry singing this problematic bit: "For those who've come across the seas / We've boundless plains to share / With courage let us all combine / To advance Australia fair." In Sydney, Julie Bishop left us similarly gutted when she passed up the opportunity to scream, "Suck on that, Robb." Tony Abbott, meanwhile, repeated his line about the Coalition having won more votes than Labor. We're pretty sure he wasn't referring to the two-party preferred numbers; by late yesterday the Australian Electoral Commission had Labor nearly 30,000 votes ahead. Perhaps the AEC has outsourced its counting to those shonks in Treasury.

Roy filling big shoes

STREWTH is still haunted by the image of Wyatt Roy together with Philip Ruddock last week; it was like a glimpse of a parallel universe where George Lucas had dumped the Ewoks and allowed Return of the Jedi to end on a more pragmatic note, with Luke Skywalker telling the Emperor, "The dark side? Sure, why not." (Ruddock is a collector of cartoons that mock him; we just hope the odd Strewth clipping is privileged to make it on to the wall as well.) Anyway, we have high hopes for Roy; fingers crossed he's studying the example of the bloke he pushed into third place in the youth stakes: Andrew Jones. Jones was 22 when he entered parliament as the member for Adelaide, but effortlessly stood out from the pack when he declared alcohol was Satan's urine (we believe we know that drop) and opined publicly that "half the MPs in parliament are drunk half the time". There was a spoken word record as well, so clearly Roy has some big shoes to fill.

Locked in the past

LAST year South Australian Treasurer Kevin Foley promised the state would be the first in the country this year to modernise budget lock-up arrangements, with an early short briefing on budget day instead. Alas, it will be strictly old paradigm tomorrow as journos are hermetically sealed inside the Adelaide Convention Centre with Treasury officials. Says Foley, "Because of the Sustainable Budget Commission report and the amount of information we are releasing on the day, I am reneging on my commitment to go modern with the budget lock-up this year, we'll look to doing it the following year. I need the undivided attention of my journalists. Journalists have a very short attention span."

More Carry On

IN correspondence corner, Strewth continues to be assailed by Carry On-loving colleagues; you can work with people for years, only to discover you barely know them. Following our rebuke yesterday from Rowan Callick, Callick has teamed up with Christian Kerr to present a vision of Carry On Canberra. Given their druthers (and overcoming matters of mortality), they're casting Joan Sims as Julia Gillard, Barbara Windsor as Julie Bishop, Charles Hawtrey (in a platinum blond wig) as Kevin Rudd, Kenneth Williams as Bob Brown (though we're not convinced that quite captures the bullying aura we're after), Sid James as Tony Abbott and Hattie Jacques as Michelle Grattan. Could we just say 12 "ooh, matrons"in repentance and be done with it? And thanks for all the amusing responses to our quoting of former NSW premier Nathan Rees's apparent concern about fat donations from "high-network individuals" corroding public trust. Asks Strewth reader Ray Bratton, "Is Rees really concerned about the telcos, the power companies and trapeze artists combining their (acidic) resources to corrode people's trust at the highest level?" Er, yes?