Strewth: gong goes wrong

Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham gave a 95-year old man a Climate Champion award. That man then endorsed his arch-rvial.

Jeremy Buckingham lost in thought.

Want to know what it’s like to get owned by a 95-year-old man? Maybe ask NSW Greens member of the Legislative Council Jeremy Buckingham. Wednesday night saw the inaugural John Davis Climate Champion Award go to Bill Ryan, a Kokoda veteran, at NSW Parliament House. Luckily for Strewth, NSW Greens MLC Justin Field put the video of the whole speech up on Facebook. Ryan, 95, was handed his climate gong by Buckingham but the award-winner used his speech to laud another NSW Greens bigwig. “I know one Greens MLC is working in that direction (to get more working people involved in the Greens) and that’s David Shoebridge. I’ll be putting him No 1 in the next (pre)selective business for the upper house.” Buckingham just looked into the distance and clapped during that bit of Ryan’s speech. Shoebridge is Buckingham’s arch rival in the NSW Greens and they’re currently fighting over that very No 1 spot.

Got no Voice

Malcolm Turnbull said on Brisbane radio on Wednesday the he knows the words to You’re the Voice. The Prime Minister’s Office told Strewth that same morning he knows the words to the John Farnham song. He doesn’t. “You don’t want to recite the words to You’re the Voice, do you?” Neil Mitchell asked him on 3AW yesterday. Turnbull replied: “There’s a good line in there for the Treasurer, time to … erm, what was it? Time to er, um, cripes ... the bit about balancing the books,” Turnbull kept trying, bless him. “Erm, no. No, look. Sons and daughters? There’s a good line in there for the Treasurer.” It got to the point where Mitchell merely laughed and begged him to stop. “Ha ha ha ... never mind ... ha ha ha ... we’ll get it later ... ha ... Prime Minister, thank you.”

Pipe for the PM

A message for Turnbull from our main man James Jeffrey, who’s on a secret mission in the north (aka plugging his book in Brisbane): “I will perform the bagpipe solo from You’re the Voice for the Prime Minister to boost his memory. No charge — I will do this for the greater good of the nation.”

Out of tune

Malcolm isn’t the only poor soul to misplace the lyrics to a song. US pop sensation Selena Gomez made headlines when she forgot the lyrics to her own tune I Want You to Know live on BBC Radio 1 last February. Frank Sinatra often needed a teleprompter to get through My Way (not exactly his most obscure song). Ozzy Osbourne also needs a prompter sometimes on stage but he tends to forget more than his lyrics. When Black Sabbath’s album 13 went to No 1 in 50 countries in 2013, Ozzy remarked, “ I didn’t know there were 50 countries!”

Shorten sees sense

Bill Shorten unveiled the cornerstone of his foreign policy philosophy in Perth yesterday. “I don’t want to do foreign policy on the run at the Armadale railway station,” he said. Good to know there are some lines the Opposition Leader won’t cross.

Cox block

On Sky News yesterday, Liberal MP Sarah Henderson reiterated she really doesn’t want to be the member for Cox. If the present member for Corangamite has no choice but to accept the name change, here are some sledges open to other members of parliament: “The member for Cox should withdraw”, “The member for Cox has finished prematurely”, “The member for Cox should be bigger than that.”

Caught sneaking

Former prime minister Julia Gillard made an appearance on the Pommy version of Sunrise, Good Morning Britain, yesterday. She regaled her hosts with tales of her visit to the coalmining town in Wales — Cwmgwrach in the Neath Valley — where her father John was born. She said she and her partner, Tim Mathieson, “went to the house where he was born, and tried to get a sneaky photo. And because there had been some publicity that I was in Wales, a man who owned the house came out the door, calling over his shoulder to his wife: ‘I told you she’d come!’ ”

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