Senators' tryout

WHEN Strewth tried to end The 7.30 Report interregnum recently, our suggested replacements for Kerry O'Brien were nothing if not wide-ranging and constructive.

WHEN Strewth tried to end The 7.30 Report interregnum recently, our suggested replacements for Kerry O'Brien were nothing if not wide-ranging and constructive.

Why not Andrew Bolt, we asked. After all, as Strewth reported, he's keen. And once the caffeine surge passed, we floated Shaun Micallef's name. While we're yet to hear from Aunty's big banana, Mark Scott (surely a sign he's giving it really careful thought), we're pleased to see he's not allowed to escape the issue, not even in Senate estimates.

We present this exchange between Scott and senators Stephen Conroy and Simon Birmingham:

Scott: "Of course, we do need, in a sense, a new person or new people to anchor that program with Mr O'Brien's move."

Birmingham: "If you would like to make an exclusive announcement at Senate estimates, Mr Scott, Senate estimates could do with the ratings boost, I am sure."

Scott: "Thanks for your audition tape, senator. It was sensational when we reviewed it."

Conroy: "Was that an application I sent?"

Birmingham: "Much as you are keen to get rid of me, Senator Conroy."

Conroy: "No, I am keen to keep you."

Birmingham: "I think you would rather not have me question you on The 7.30 Report."

Not dead yet

EARLIER this week, former NSW premier Bob Carr used his blog to go in to bat for his team, albeit in the barely legal third-person mode: "Former premier Bob Carr, speaking at a Labor fundraiser for Strathfield MP Virginia Judge, said the state Labor government had been subject to the most unrelenting bias from the media in NSW history." The public bias may be a bigger worry, though, with yesterday's Newspoll suggesting Premier Kristina Keneally's team is the most unpopular Labor government in Australia ever. We're sure it was pure coincidence the Newspoll was published the same day a dinner was planned to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the state's first Labor government. We asked dinner organiser, upper house member Luke Foley, how it was likely to affect the mood. Were we, Foley inquired gently, planning to take the piss? Before we had a chance to recover from the shock of such a suggestion, Foley went on to cheerfully tell Strewth: "The Sydney Morning Herald editorial of January 20, 1892, gleefully celebrated the death of the Labor Party. We've survived two world wars, countless wars, election defeats, infiltration by rogues, misfits and madmen [whoever could he mean?], and we're still in business." With five former NSW premiers - Carr, Neville Wran, Barrie Unsworth, Morris Iemma and Nathan Rees - rolling up for the shindig, we're hoping the night felt a bit like that Doctor Who story, The Five Doctors. Give or take the factional Daleks.

Roiling in the isle

KEVIN Harkins, the Tassie union boss whose political career was nobbled by his semi-namesake, then prime minister Kevin Rudd, has scored himself a new plum job. The electrical trades union chief and Labor Left faction player is the new head of Unions Tasmania, the island's peak trade union body. Harkins was denied a spot on Labor's Senate ticket at this year's federal election after Rudd honoured his less subtle union tactics by labelling him a "well-known pugilist". Harkins is expected to use his new job to launch another stab at politics. Meanwhile, Tasmanian Liberal senator David Bushby, who has apparently recovered from The International Business Times making him the Joe Hockey-slagging chief of ANZ (an accidental sideways promotion reported in Strewth yesterday), has taken it in his stride, judging by the headline on his press release yesterday: "Harkins will take the union movement and Tasmanian Labor back to the bad old days."

Put the X in Xmas

HOW to write a press release with a straight face, a lesson in one sentence courtesy of Scribe publishers: "Scribe will be publishing The Australian Book of Atheism, edited by Warren Bonett, on November 22, just in time for Christmas."

Best ham united

IN South Australia, Labor MP Tony Piccolo has been in state parliament tackling what can only be termed the ugly spectre of hog whistling: "It is quite appropriate for this house to call upon Coles supermarkets to apply the same welfare standard towards pork products. After all, I would have thought that a pig is a pig; it does not matter whether it lives in Australia, Europe or Asia, a pig is a pig. It is like saying that, somehow, we need some sort of pig racism: that our pigs are more important or superior to the pigs overseas."

Vintage victories

NOT only is Jane Fraser our esteemed colleague and an honoured Strewth alumnus, she is now, thanks to her Plainly Jane column in the Review section of this august organ, the only person to have taken out not one but two awards at this year's Older People Speak Out Media Awards. We salute her (and not just because she has a matching pair of sharp-edged and heavy OPSO gongs on her desk, sits near us and has good aim).