Strewth: Bums on bus seats for union push in Gilmore

When it comes to making democratic involvement sound like a jolly holiday, Unions ACT has got it covered.

Stephen Galilee, left, presents Lucas Dow with a Eureka flag in Sydney yesterday. Gladly thy Southern Cross I bear. Picture: Hollie Adams

Bums on bus seats

“Gilmore doorknock getaway! Only four spots left!” When it comes to making democratic involvement sound like a jolly holiday, Unions ACT has got it covered. “Weekend doorknocking in paradise, you say?” the email continues in its quest to get bums on bus seats. “Join us for two days of Change the Rules doorknocking in the marginal electorate of Gilmore, on the NSW south coast. We’ve booked the bus and the accommodation … now we need you!” Why? “Last election the Liberals won by only 753 votes. Ensuring the Liberals don’t win Gilmore is essential to ensuring we change the government …” And so on. Surely the “only four spots left” is the real thing, and not one of those faintly desperate “tickets selling fast” or “closing down sale” messages. Surely. Perhaps they could enlist NSW Minerals Council chief executive Stephen Galilee and Adani chief Lucas Dow, who looked like they were in the right mood at the Sydney Mining Club luncheon yesterday. Give or take, though, we could be misconstruing. But if they’re busy, Andrew Thorburn and Ken Henry may well be free.

A tale told by an idiot

While not quite a riddle wrapped in a mystery shrouded in enigma, the kerfuffle around Coalition MP Scott Buchholz yesterday was odd. Amid the crump and thud of the government’s war on doctors, an unspecified complaint from a female Australian Defence Force officer floated up in eerie quiet, yielding this inconclusive line from Buchholz: “I behaved like an idiot on a parliamentary exchange last year and I recognise how inappropriate my actions were. I apologised for my conduct and the offence I caused, and I reiterate my deep respect for the ADF and its members.” But the specifics were left very much unsaid. A Kevin Rudd-style apoplexy over catering didn’t seem likely. Eventually The New Daily’s Samantha Maiden reported a sober, celebratory hug, quoting a colleague as saying: “Scotty is a big hugger.” But “idiot”? Cue chin-scratching.

How it’s done

Compare and contrast with the Nigel Scullion enigma-busting model. Years back, when he was alerted to a story breaking about an old Russian adventure, he responded with a quote that will last forever: “I don’t know what the story says — let me be clear about that. But if it says I was chained to a pole on stage, then, sure, I’m guilty.” Elaborating on his extracurricular activities during a fishing conference in St Petersburg back in his pre-elected days, he bestowed this crowning glory: “At some stage, a fight broke out, so we all got up and left. But I was fully dressed when that happened.” An ASIO memo would never have been so snappy.

When in aroma

This week, Strewth made the mistake of hailing Tony Abbott’s toilet call; we now realise the comparison to Gough Whitlam was not universally appreciated. We’ll nevertheless continue the theme tenuously by noting how our strolling in the inner Sydney realm of Surry Hills was, yet again, beset by sewery wafts from holes in footpath and gutter, each one an unhappy spectral presence designed to haunt the nostrils. It’s something we’ve noticed far more here than in any other Australian capital. Our chum and soon-to-be former colleague Penny Durham subsequently alerted us to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ode to the pongs of Cologne: “In Koln, a town of monks and bones / And pavements fang’d with murderous stones / And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches; / I counted two and seventy stenches, / All well defined, and several stinks! / Ye Nymphs that reign o’er sewers and sinks, /

The river Rhine, it is well known, / Doth wash your city of Cologne; / But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine / Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?” Give or take the monks and Rhine, it’s so very nearly a perfect fit.

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