Strewth: In the trenches

Asked about Emma Husar, one Labor figure responded with a hybrid of poetic lyricism and grim reality.

As Rupert Brooke and co discovered in World War I, there’s nothing quite like coming under fire in the trenches for stirring poetic sensibilities. And so to the Labor Party ranks as the investigation into backbencher Emma Husar rumbles on with its ballistic to-and-fro of accusation, fierce denial and persistent leak. As dirty as the mud of Flanders and nearly as barbed as its wire, it is already dimming the afterglow of the Super Saturday by-elections. Yesterday we found ourselves pondering the closing of words of Charles Hamilton Sorley’s poem To Germany: “We’ll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain / When it is peace. But until peace, the storm / The darkness and the thunder and the rain.” With that in mind, we asked one Labor figure for their thoughts on the Husar front. Like those poets before them, they experienced that powerful hybrid of lyricism and grim reality bursting within in their heart. Whereupon they told Strewth: “When your political narrative is whether or not you flashed your gash at a colleague, you could probably say you’re off message.”

A Dutton for all seasons

Meanwhile, Wayne Swan was out chatting with Michelle Grattan.

Swan: “I mean, the Liberal Party in this country has been taken over by Tea Party fanatics …”

Grattan: “But surely you’re not calling Malcolm Turnbull a Tea Party fanatic?”

Swan: “Well, he’s dancing to the tune of the Tea Party fanatics at every turn.”

Grattan: “Who are they, exactly?”

Swan: “Well, people like Peter Dutton.”

And yet poor old Dutton was over on 2GB, copping enough of a pineappling from Ray Hadley that we started to worry for him. Things began well, including a jolly shared bucketing of the ABC and an equally shared bafflement at gender-neutral bogs. But come the vexed issue of big company tax cuts and blam! Hadley even pulled off the miracle of painting Dutts as an oppressed member of the cabinet, cowed into silence: “I don’t want you to be sacked as Immigration Minister, but I hope one day you can come on the program and say what you really think and not be hamstrung by your cabinet commitments … when it comes to challenging the Prime Minister, you have to watch your Ps and Qs because you might end up being the minister for nothing.” Thoughts and prayers for the minister.

All kinds of menace

As he reached into his bucket of pop culture references yesterday, Scott Morrison got busy painting the Labor Party as an even broader church than the Libs purport to be. On the Husar investigation and on kerfuffles in Victoria, Bill Shorten was “doing the whole Sergeant Schultz thing”, a reference to the bumbling, amiable character on the 1960s TV comedy Hogan’s Heroes. But by the end of the press conference, the amiability was done: “Imagine if you have the chainsaw of what Bill Shorten wants to do to house markets.” The picture of Shorten wielding a chainsaw became only more troubling when you consider that a few sentences earlier the Treasurer had put vision-obscuring egg on Shorten’s face. But within a few sentences, it was time to put down the chainsaw and pack some serious heat: “But to go to the full magnum, Clint Eastwood approach of negative gearing being thrown out the door like the Labor Party wants to do — well, that spells danger-danger-danger.” Especially if the egg is still in place.

Fearless, not beerless

As befits a pollie who has an ale bearing his nickname, Anthony Albanese represents a very beery electorate. Indeed, his inner-Sydney seat of Grayndler boasts a constellation of breweries. And as of a couple of years ago, Grayndler also included Balmain, the suburb that retains the most solid pub-to-inhabitant ratio in the land. (Albo marked that occasion with a pub crawl along the peninsula.) He was out the other night, attending to what we like to think of as elector-ale matters. Specifically he was at the Malt Shovel brewery (the folks behind James Squire) sampling beer made from yeast recovered from a 1797 shipwreck. It’s a long tale, in which the Sydney-bound vessel Sydney Cove was wrecked off Tasmania as it neared the end of its journey from Calcutta. Some intact bottles recovered a while back yielded yeast, which was brought back to life and, after much work, presto: a lovely porter named in honour of its bumpy origins. With brewmaster Chuck Hahn manning the taps, the darkness flowed into glasses and then ’twixt lips to instant acclaim. Given how nervous politicians get about visual metaphors — no getting photographed under an exit sign, thank you very much — hats off to Albo for shrugging off such piffling concerns and cheerily allowing himself to be snapped while cradling a bottle labelled “The Wreck”.

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