Strewth: All shook up

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack rocked up in the Presley-crazed NSW town of Parkes and went native.

It’s now or never: Michael McCormack in Parkes.

As you may well know, the Parkes Elvis Festival started in 1993, the year before Australia Day became consolidated as the national shindig it is now. This year, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack rocked up in the Presley-crazed NSW town and went native (pictured) — and good lord did he look like he was having a ball. Glorious in powder-blue jumpsuit and cape, black pompadour and gold-rimmed sunglasses, MickMack knew it was good to be the King. He sang Viva Las Vegas on television (restyled as Viva Las Parkes), and he got on stage and reminded the nation that Tony Abbott doesn’t have a monopoly on Suspicious Minds. He sang his heart out and, as it transpired, his belt off. But choosing the right Elvis song can be a bit of a minefield. Given the fish apocalypse unfurling in the nation’s longest river, for example, it would have been a bit dicey singing Can’t Help Falling in Love: “Like a river flows / Surely to the sea / Darling so it goes …” But MickMack pulled it off with panache and judicious vibrato. If Elvis doesn’t leave the building on election night, it could be time for the Coalition to consider a Nat for the top job — once they realise they are in need of not just a leader but a King.

Oz Day done right

Scott “Colonel Parker” Morrison,meanwhile, was going to town on Australia Day, stopping just short of mandating the compulsory enjoyment of lamingtons on the big day. While so much of his efforts seemed a bit try-hard in comparison to the simple majesty of Tony Abbott’s knighthood for the Duke of Edinburgh, ScoMo was able to inject some frisson. Indeed, the Prime Minister — who in recent times has been pictured (a) in shorts that look like a TV test pattern and (b) badly Photoshopped white sneakers (with two left feet, to boot) — has laid down the law on matters sartorial. “By all means put on the boardies and thongs for the barbecue afterwards, but for the official ceremony it’s the right thing to do to show respect in how you dress for your new country of citizenship and your fellow new citizens.” Could it possibly be OK to wear boardies and thongs to the ceremony and then have some formal clobber Photoshopped on to one’s person afterwards? Or could we just have an Australia Day uniform, preferably modelled on the Bruces in Monty Python? We can but wonder.

O Captain! My Captain!

Our favourite contribution to the whole Australia Day matter remains the one Nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie made in September last year. Of January 26, she proclaimed: “That is when the course of our nation changed forever, when Captain Cook stepped ashore.” While McKenzie may have accidentally sidelined Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet in the process, she did effectively extend the life of James Cook by nearly a decade. Which was tremendously nice of her.

The end is nigh

Meanwhile in the Not Extending Political Life department:

Journo: “Has Emma Husar told you that she will move to the crossbench?”

Bill Shorten: “Well, first of all, Emma has not confirmed that she’s moving to the crossbench … I think some of the treatment that she has received has been unfair.”

Journo: “So with that unfair treatment, would you like to explain a little bit more?”

And with that, Shorten had the opportunity to wield the line that is the English language’s closest equivalent to being hit in the face with a compost bin made of lead: “I’ll leave that to NSW Labor.”

In good company

On a different note, a slip has occurred in our local library in Sydney’s inner west. Special Strewth reader Tom Greenwood discovered it yesterday when he perused the computerised entry for the Gerald Durrell classic My Family and Other Animals. Given that it’s billed as “the bewitching account of a rare and magical childhood”, it seems only a partial blip that the image accompanying the entry is the cover of My Family and Other Animus by yours truly. Look, this is only incidentally self-promotional.

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