Skivvies be gone

YESTERDAY'S Strewth was all about the Sydney Writers' Festival, which was good for some but others said: "Oh, come on! Who cares about people who wear corduroy jackets and high-necked skivvies and smoke thin cigarettes and suck up to Christopher Hitchens surely knowing he'd have a drink with anyone and has, with everyone?"

YESTERDAY'S Strewth was all about the Sydney Writers' Festival, which was good for some but others said: "Oh, come on! Who cares about people who wear corduroy jackets and high-necked skivvies and smoke thin cigarettes and suck up to Christopher Hitchens surely knowing he'd have a drink with anyone and has, with everyone?"

To which we say: fair enough. And so today we turn our face from the literary caravan in Sydney to deliver to you a whole column of japes from Canberra.

Rudd gives pay rise

YOU'LL know that big mining companies are accused of making super profits. You'll know that our dear leader Kevin Rudd wants to tax those profits and share the bounty with his subjects (that would be you, comrades.) How much do you think you'll get? How about an extra $108,000 a year? That's what Prime Minister said in Question Time. "If the Leader of the Opposition blocks this [tax], he will be denying workers an increase in super from 9 per cent to 12 per cent," Rudd thundered across the dispatch box. "He will be denying working Australians better super on their retirement. He will be denying a worker on about average earnings an additional $108,000 a year!" Given that's twice what the average punter earns, were pretty sure the dear leader is wrong.

Gillardian slip

SOME readers noticed that Speaker Harry Jenkins on Monday not once, but twice referred to Julia Gillard as the Prime Minister, and that Strewth did not report this. They thought we must be protecting Harry, but why would we do that? No, we were protecting Julia.

Emmo gets the blues

CRAIG Emerson will be playing touch footy early this morning. It's a regular engagement except this game is more serious and has been billed a State of Origin event. Yet Emerson, who represents the fine Queensland seat of Rankin in the federal parliament, will be playing for NSW. This was described to us as "most unseemly", but actually it's treason and as such a hanging offence, so we called to ask Emerson to accompany us to the gallows. But in a last-minute appeal for clemency, he said: "No, wait, I was born in the proud town of Baradine, NSW, and played for the Baradine Magpies and that's why I'm wearing blue." He added: "If the referee would bend the rules, I'd happily change sides." We don't know if such promiscuity is better or worse.

Spin doctors rule

AN analysis of the latest parliamentary telephone book provides an interesting insight into staff at the Prime Minister's office. In the first list after the election, the dear leader had 13 advisers and seven media staff whose job it is to herd the cats that comprise the nation's underpaid, over-worked, mushroom-like press corps. In the latest telephone book there are 16 entries for advisers and 13 media staff, meaning that after three years in office the PM has decided he needs only a little more help with the nuts and bolts of government, but a whole lot more help with the press. Also interesting: of the original 13 policy advisers there are now only six. Of the original seven media advisers, five remain.

More mea culpas

BOTH the main parties had meetings yesterday and from what we hear, the flies on the wall of the Liberal bunker were having more fun. Tony Abbott started by saying he was "sorry for making that mistake" meaning telling Kerry O'Brien that he doesn't always tell the gospel truth, which was kind of problematic because he wasn't reading from notes at the time and now we don't know whether he was actually sorry or even if he thought it was a mistake. If that weren't postmodern enough, Abbott also explained his own great big new tax on everything (the maternity leave levy) by saying, "I am as conservative as anyone in this room but a true conservative moves with the times", when, in fact, a true conservative does not.

Friends like these

LIKE the kid at the bottom of the class, poor old Barnaby Joyce will forever have to put up with people on the other side of politics saying he's not all that good with numbers. Now his own side is saying it, too. On Monday opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb criticised Treasurer Wayne Swan for saying Australian mining companies were paying as little as 13 per cent tax. "Swan has done a Barnaby," Robb told reporters, referring to Joyce, who famously mucked up his millions with gazillions. Robb has since apologised, and Barnaby, being more affable than most, has accepted, saying: "Andrew's a pretty good bloke, he rang me up and said you know he'd made a mistake." Which makes two of them. Or is that three?

Just call me Barnaby

ON the subject of the Queensland senator, how come everyone in the parliament is a member for this, or a minister for that, except for Barnaby, who is only ever Barnaby? About 150 times yesterday (rough guess) the Prime Minister said "Onya Barnaby" and "Let's hear from Barnaby" and so on. Reminds us of Boris Johnson, London's mayor, who is Boris to everybody, and rising.