Strewth: Dual duel duet

Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten made the faux pas of scheduling press conferences at the same time. Who won?

The day after the nation was shocked to learn two women had worn the same outfitto the Melbourne Cup, the Victorian capital yielded another awkward coincidence: Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten both advertised citizenship-flavoured press conferences at the same venue at the same time. It was a race ultimately won by the Prime Minister. Sure, the Opposition Leader would call for a citizenship “gold standard” — cue flashbacks to Medicare Gold — but it was Turnbull who delivered the greatest magic, not least this: “Of course it may be that nobody needs to be referred to the High Court.” Time will tell how that measures optimism-wise with this statement about Barnaby Joyce to parliament on August 14: “The leader of the National party … is qualified to sit in this house, and the High Court will so hold.” (We gather Joyce’s campaign to become, er, requalified to sit in parliament is going well.) Then Turnbull said this: “Clearly at the nomination stage … people are going to have to be warned, you know, really in big red flashing letters, ‘Dual citizenship is an issue …’ ” Which rang a bell.

We can only imagine Turnbull was picking up on a tweeted suggestion from yours truly in response to this Eric Abetz line on Sky News this week: “I think a lot of men and women on all sides of politics were not aware of the strict nature of this constitutional provision.” In a moment of public spiritedness, we chimed in on Twitter: “It’s in bold type on the first page of the Australian Electoral Commission nomination forms for both the Senate and the House of Representatives — do you need it to be in flashing neon with a fanfare of trumpets?” Given the Prime Minister is on to the flashing letters, we hope he’ll make it to the trumpets.

Four times eleven

Anyway, here’s the basic instruction that appears at the top of the right-hand column of the AEC form (there are only two columns). See if you can decipher it and become worthy of the baseline salary of roughly $200,000 paid to backbenchers and senators as they’re starting out. And we quote: “Please read the candidate statement and declaration carefully before signing the nomination form. Your attention is drawn in particular to section 44 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia: Any person who: (i) is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power …” If your eyes are letting you down or you prudently want a break from screen time, you can click on the audio option and have the following read to you in a calm, no-nonsense voice: “You cannot nominate for the Senate or the House of Representatives if you are disqualified by section 44 of the Constitution and have not remedied that disqualification before nomination.” Moving on, Abetz has since characterised a cross-party marriage equality bill drafted by Liberal senator Dean Smith as “seriously inadequate”. Given the above, maybe Abetz should try reading it again.

Syllable artist

Back at the Turnbull presser, the PM’s loving repetition of the word resolution generated its own frisson. Here’s a snippet from one of our recent parliamentary Sketches that covers one of resolution’s closest relatives: “Few things set off Labor quite like the PM’s pronunciation of ‘resolute’. It is clearly a cherished corner of the vast Turnbull lexicon, each syllable enunciated with relish. Not least the last, which arrives on the ear not as the quotidian ‘loot’ we’re used to but as a sumptuous ‘lyute’, which speaks of comfort and velvet and tinkling fountains and liveried footmen and trained flamingoes and smoked pheasant tongue. It is beautiful to hear a word so loved, yet Labor hearts are not so sentimental.” But you can never capture it all, it seems. As one of Strewth’s Twitter correspondents observed yesterday: “You missed out the rolled r.” Dammit.

Emperor rememberer

Yesterday, Strewth revisited the 1977 Melbourne Cup, at which then governor-general John Kerr got tidily blotto, then gave a speech during which he batted aside heckles with the beatific smile of a man who had transcended earthly cares for the afternoon. This brought back fond memories for our colleague Niki Savva: “On that famous Cup Day, we were in our office (The Sun News-Pictorial) in old Parliament House. Working of course. We taped Kerr’s speech. He kept going on about ‘the horse’. Over and over. Gough Whitlam was still opposition leader. We rang his office, and he came to listen to the tape. He roared laughing when it was over and said, ‘Caligula had nothing on this man.’ ”

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