Strewth: Dancing with death

When a heartfelt Matt Canavan spoke against the assisted suicide legislation on Wednesday, he should have dug as deep as Aunty.

Resources Minister Matt Canavan was particularly heartfelt when he spoke against the assisted suicide legislation in the Senate on Wednesday night, dropping in this strong anecdote: “There is even a reported case where a Dutch doctor euthanised a 26-year-old ballerina with arthritis in her toes, because she could no longer pursue her career as a dancer, she was depressed and requested to be put to death. The doctor complied with her request and merely noted, ‘One doesn’t enjoy such things, but it was her choice.’ ” It’s a case that gets cited a lot, not least in Thomas Nelson’s book Moral Dilemmas and on a 2011 episode of the ABC’s Q&A. In response to the latter, the ABC’s Religion and Ethics website went digging at the time and concluded: “The widespread dissemination of this particular urban legend dates back to a 1995 anti-euthanasia video, Euthanasia: False Light.” There was, Aunty added, no jurisdiction in which voluntary euthanasia would have been permitted for such a case, but the fact the person telling the story in the video was Californian doctor, fundamentalist Christian and televangelist Robin Bernhoft would have given it some zing.

On a hiding to nothing

One of the smaller bits of fallout from Fraser Anning’s “final solution” speech has been his leader Bob Katter’s continued umbrage at questions about his grandfather’s ethnic background and whether he would have been let into an Anning-run Australia. Katter got close to blowing a head gasket yesterday at Sky News’s Tom Connell, informing him: “You need a big hiding for ever mentioning anything of that nature!” Unquote. Perhaps the most remarkable part of the encounter was Connell’s expression, one of such profound imperturbability it would have made an Easter Island statue look twitchy in comparison.

Yin and yang

In a week that’s seen bipartisan handshakes and hugs, the spirit continued in its small but touching way on 2GB yesterday.

Alan Jones: “Now, look, you’re not dumb. You’re not stupid. You’re a smart bloke.”

Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen: “That’s very kind of you, Alan.”

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash provided a more familiar vibe during her presser when BuzzFeed’s Alice Workman continued her quest to learn about her office’s role in tipping off the media about the raid on the Australian Workers Union.

Workman: “Minister, have you been interviewed by the Australian Federal Police …”

Cash: “Oh, Alice …”

Happily ever after

Mitch Fifield may be Minister for the Communications and the Yartz, but in the Senate he also gets to represent Immigration Minister Peter Dutton. It was in this side role that Fifield got to field some questions from One Nation’s Peter Georgiou the other day. Having cited the various jobless figures, he eventually moved on to this supplementary question: “Is it true that Australia is also short of masseuses and that we need to import them from abroad? Will the influx of overseas massage therapists end happily for all Australians?” No further questions, yer honour.

Wearing PJK’s insult

Cop that, Keating: Nine reporter Airlie Walsh and Chris Uhlmann have that trolling feeling. Picture: Kym Smith

When news broke of the merger between Nine and Fairfax Media (a merger in the same sense your Strewth columnist and a chocky bar merged yesterday), one person who got revved up was Paul Keating. Amid PJK’s lava flow of words was this: “Channel Nine, for over half a century, has never (done) other than displayed the opportunism and ethics of an alley cat.” So some of the folks at Nine have knocked out T-shirts, as modelled here by reporter Airlie Walsh and political editor Chris Uhlmann. On the front is a Paul Zanetti-rendered version of Hanna-Barbera’s alley-dwelling feline Top Cat emerging from a Nine bin with a microphone, camera and a swirling cloud of flies. And on the back, the Nine logo and the message: “Alley cats own the streets”. They’re nicely cut, so PJK would appreciate that.

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