Sealed off

ABC News 24 has put down its foot and decided it's simply not going to show anything involving the three independents until they make up their blessed minds.

ABC News 24 has put down its foot and decided it's simply not going to show anything involving the three independents until they make up their blessed minds.

OK, we're extrapolating, but it seems the only plausible reason for the decision to overlook the big press conference yesterday afternoon. But oh, what Aunty missed: the sweet fragrance of parliamentary reform; the miracle of Christopher Pyne and Anthony Albanese standing side by side (true story!); the merry (and, dare we say it, rather unparliamentary) talk of love, goodwill and group hugs. Lord bless each and every one of us. On the plus side, Aunty's station devoted to broadcasting news round the clock did instead re-run a nice story from Sunday about Taronga Zoo's sea lions, particularly the ones that don't bite children; apparently it's better when they haven't had a chance to acquire a taste for human flesh.

Wait, there's more

IF there's something the nation is screaming out for now, it's the wisdom of former NSW premier Bob Carr. Happily, he's heard the call and blogged: "Here's a solution: make [Rob] Oakeshott or [Tony] Windsor minister for regional development and recruit a Coalition MP as speaker. Offer Malcolm Turnbull a post in cabinet. After all, he's roiling with ambition and [Tony] Abbott's grip on the leadership [not to mention Bob Ellis's affections] is now firm. Why not round out a political career with three years in a Gillard cabinet?" Also, if you visit his blog at bobcarrblog.wordpress.com, you get at no extra cost a most fetching photo of Carr impersonating a little teapot.

Twittered out

WHERE do pollies go during an interregnum? Almost none are on Twitter; even Malcolm Turnbull's normally relentless stream of upbeat musings on his electorate's public transport/democratically engaged schoolchildren/peerless water views has dried up. There is, of course, a roster of MPs chalked in for supping with Bob Katter and company, and a few others have bobbed up at political or at least vaguely parliamentary events, not least Speaker (for now) Harry Jenkins, who revealed - at an exhibition honouring Parliament House architect Romaldo Giurgola - that "exasperated" isn't his only speech setting. At least Health Minister Nicola Roxon managed to break free, taking in Mary Poppins at Her Majesty's Theatre in Melbourne. We hunted high and low for some sort of tenuous meaning we could read into this and, mercifully, we discovered Mary Poppins was once made into - we're not making this up - a Soviet musical miniseries called Mary Poppins, Do Svidanya. It was divided into two parts, the first called Lady Perfection while the second, which sounds ominously like it's following Rob Oakeshott's decision-making timetable, is Week Ends on Wednesday. This isn't necessarily as flimsy as it looks.

Rough trotter

WITH all this talk of political pork, here's some of the real deal. One of of our colleagues has, in the process of following a court case involving animal rights activists who filmed inside a piggery, obtained this quote from Australian Pork Ltd: "While the case is under court proceedings, there'll be no comment from this quarter." While it's nice to hear an accidental, vaguely meat-based pun from the swine mongers, this would have been preferable: "We're not in the habit of making comments on the trotter." We shall, however, in the interests of mercy, refrain from suggesting we're off to talk to our snout.

A left Hook

THE South Australian government is spending $30 million to introduce a new smart card ticketing system to Adelaide's haphazard public transport system. It is a big investment and one the Transport Department is not taking lightly. So much so, the department's deputy chief executive Rod Hook yesterday told a state parliament budget and finance committee inquiry that SA really is very different from Victoria. "We hope it is distinguished from the system used in Victoria, because we do not want it to collapse when the minister is doing the launch," Hook said with a straight face.

And on it goes . . .

IT was a pleasant surprise yesterday to be reminded in this paper, courtesy of Kenneth Wiltshire, of the words of Edmund Burke and his 1774 speech to the voters of Bristol about the loyalties of an elected member. Wiltshire rightly thought it would be of value to the three independents still inching their way towards a decision, especially the bit about an MP's constituents and how the MP ought to "prefer their interests to his own". As Wiltshire apparently ran out of room to run the next bit, Strewth presents it here for your enjoyment: "But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."