Strewth: Katter wrote a prawno

The closest we come in this country to someone being torn to pieces by a crocodile is Bob Katter in a bad mood.

Do our bombs look big in this? Bill Heffernan getting assistance from Strewth Picture: Ray Strange

On a political-metaphor level, the closest we come in this country to someone being torn to pieces by a crocodile is Bob Katter in a bad mood. Following an ABC Four Corners’ report into the white spot disease devastating the prawn industry, he has gone berserk, delivering a fury-powered crustacean dissertation yesterday that is a masterclass in escalation. Step one: “It was a subject of my fury. Anyone who knew anything about it said that if you import the prawns, you will get white spot.” Then this episode of Bob Wrote a Prawno steps up: “I just pray that we see some industry groups get together and sue individually and collectively the ministers, the government and the public servants that have been responsible for the grossest irresponsibility.” But, as Bachman Turner Overdrive sang in 1974, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Stand back in awe as Katter opens a mighty, terrible vortex into the entirety of human history and casts the bums straight into it: “They stand up there with the Byzantine traitor who opened the gate to allow the Ottoman Turks into Constantinople, the greatest city and centre of Christianity in Europe. You are right up there with them.” So, any questions?

Old money bags

While we’ve never gone looking for specific evidence that Scott Morrison never met our dear departed mother, we got some yesterday as he was interviewed on 3AW by Tony Jones.

Jones: “The supposed ban on those cash transactions of above $10,000, are you still committed to that?”

ScoMo: “Absolutely. I mean the idea that somehow ordinary Australians walk around with sports bags full of $10,000 for ordinary everyday transaction or business transactions …”

Nah, definitely not.

Just a pinch of Magyar

Also reminding us of Mum, sort of, is Michael Danby’s voice. Much was said and written yesterday after the veteran member for Melbourne Ports announced he was ready to pack it all in. But what didn’t receive attention was that Danby, as far as we know, is the only one of our federal elected members who can do a perfect Hungarian accent. It’s a talent he acquired as a child from family friends, but it is as flawless as the Mecsek Hills on a summer’s evening.

Blast from the past

As one cupboard door was opened in The Australian’s Canberra bureau yesterday, witnesses experienced a flashback to when then senator Bill Heffernan jazzed up Senate estimates by pulling a fake pipe bomb out of a Coles bag. His motivation that day in 2014 was to highlight shortcomings in Parliament House’s security, a point he made in two parts: a length of lead pipe and a trio of candles taped together with an old phone charger. “It could blow a tree the size of this building out of the ground,” he said hypothetically, reminiscing about his bomb-rich farm childhood as some in the room found themselves trying to imagine a parliament-sized tree. Despite the prop’s place in Australian political history, Strewth didn’t see it until Heff pulled the pin on his career in 2016. As we recorded one wistful afternoon: “Autumn sunshine slanting through the wooden louvres, he found his ‘bomb’, still safely stowed in that Coles bag. “Coles rang me then to thank me for the free publicity,” he observed to Strewth when we paid him a visit. But the stunt prop is not destined for one of the packing boxes crowding his office. “It’s just a lump of pipe I picked up in the back of my shed. I don’t need it. I’ve got plenty of pipe left in the shed.” Yours truly posed with Heff and those heavy chunks of history, and our colleague Ray Strange captured the moment for posterity (see above).

Menace for Dennis

In a bid to be helpful, we relieved Heff of his “bomb” and lugged it upstairs to the Parliament House bureau of this august organ. We weren’t exactly spoiled for choice in the hidey-hole department, so we stashed it in a cupboard in Dennis Shanahan’s office, sure he wouldn’t mind. Now, as the office gets cleared out ahead of renovations, our learned colleague is stuck with it. “We are trying to find a home for it,” he told Strewth, before reaching into his well of understatement: “But a fake bomb is not an easy thing to deal with.” For the record, he also found “an Exit International suicide kit that someone sent me”.

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