Strewth: Brought to heel

In donating her red heels Julie Bishop showed us all how the “but” word can be used to devastating effect.

Down in Old Parliament House yesterday, Julie Bishop presented the Museum of Australian Democracy with the red heels she wore when she quit as foreign minister. Or, to borrow the Ernest Hemingway template: “For free: lady shoes. Worn once.” There, between the pocket-sized Senate and House of Representatives that once contained our federal pollies, she explained: “If by gifting these red shoes I inspire just one young woman to aspire to enter public life, to aspire to be a foreign minister or indeed a prime minister, this gift will have been worth making.” Before the shoes were placed in their new display case, she answered many questions about present events, not least the defection to the crossbench of her bench buddy Julia Banks. And, amid it all, she gave us the greatest use of “but” since freshly re-elected Victorian Premier Dan Andrews used it to separate his position of “I don’t often commentate on our political opponent”, from his position of incinerating state Liberal president Michael Kroger. Quizzed about John Howard’s thoughts on Banks and his reminder that MPs are “overwhelmingly there because of their patronage from their own party”, she began on a traditional note: “He is a great Australian and he is one of our finest PMs and I have an enormous deal of respect for John Howard.” Then, once again, the transformative “B” word: “But it’s interesting as I reflect on my 20 years of parliament, for when I was preselected as the Liberal candidate for Curtin, John Howard as PM urged voters to support a Liberal who had turned independent (Howard’s old friend Allan Rocher) and was sitting on the crossbenches. So I am pleased that that view no longer prevails with the Liberal hierarchy.” Such clarity of long-term memory surely almost counts as Balkan.

Empty dance card

It was in January last year that Coalition MP (and occasional upside-down beer-drinker) Andrew Laming lowered his popularity somewhat among the nation’s educators. In what AAP elegantly described at the time as “an unprompted post on his official Facebook page”, Laming asked: “Are teachers back at work this week, or are they ‘lesson planning’ from home? Let me know exactly.” It did not go down terribly well. Yesterday, the parliamentary sitting calendar for next year was released. It is strikingly threadbare, the non-sitting weeks stretching across the page in great expanses of empty, Arctic white. And once you take out the couple of weeks that have been coloured in but can’t for various reasons actually be utilised, it becomes even more stark. At this point, in stepped teacher Daisy Turnbull Brown, who tweeted: “Shout out to all the MPs and candidates who have commented about teachers not working full time.”

’Tis the season

Her father Malcolm Turnbull has been remembered in the invitation to Bill Shorten’s Christmas drinks with the press gallery. It entices parliamentary hacks to come “tuck your knees under the table” with Shorten, a reference to one of Turnbull’s cherished sledges against the Opposition Leader. The invitation is a showbag of deprecation, self and otherwise, and his office has had fun with it. A small selection: “We give you our rolled-gold guarantee this will be an unbelieva-Bill evening, with all the excitement and passion of Sky News After Dark and twice the audience. All sausage-eating techniques respected, welcomed and celebrated.”

Getting on with it

The Agriculture Minister is admirably keeping his focus on his portfolio, as demonstrated by this announcement: “Minister for Agriculture David Littleproud has congratulated the APVMA on continuing to improve its performance in last quarter’s statistics. ‘I congratulate the APVMA on continuing to improve its performance.’ ” At no point is it explained for the benefit of newbies that APVMA stands for Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, so hooray for Google.

Birmo v the B O’S

Trade Minister Simon Birmingham is not quite fully enamoured of his colleague Barry O’Sullivan. “No, I was not impressed,” he told Adelaide’s ABC 891 yesterday of O’Sullivan’s latest efforts with/at Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young. “There seems to regularly be a cacophony of exchanges happening across the other end of the chamber that inhabits the crossbench and the National Party and so on, much of it frankly appears to be pretty unedifying and I encourage everybody to lift their game.”

Then he applied something akin to a full stop: “Barry O’Sullivan has lost his preselection. He is not going to be an endorsed candidate for the National Party at the next election.” Ooh. Ow.

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