Strewth: Let the eyes have it

There was almost a whiff of fatalism around Scott Morrison.

There was almost a whiff of fatalism around Scott Morrison yesterday. “Bill Shorten is taking this next election for granted. Bill Shorten is sitting there wondering what curtains are going to be put in his office,” the sudden Prime Minister harrumphed. Then possibly taking into account the newly precarious state of Wentworth and Julia Banks pulling the pin in robust style, he offered this concession: “Bill Shorten can take the next election for granted if he likes.” Between that and being grilled on whether former aspiring prime minister Peter Dutton might have a date soon at the High Court, it all seemed less fun than the patriotism of the day before. As he tweeted then: “Today I gave each of my ministers a lapel pin with the Australian flag on it. I’ve been wearing this for many years now. The reason I wear it is because it reminds me every single day whose side I’m on. I’m on the side of the Australian people.” Let’s put aside the need for such reminders. Let’s also put aside for a moment that someone on Reddit has managed to quickly but lovingly curate a collection under the self-explanatory headline, “Here are some photos of Scott Morrison not wearing the Australian flag pin he claims to have worn ‘every single day’.” He doesn’t have one on in his Twitter profile shot. (Finance Minister Mathias Cormann did have his on yesterday, which at least offset the 50 Shades of Dismay quietly colliding on his face as he — presumably — contemplated last week.) Anyway, a flag pin is a soft option and serves as a reminder ScoMo didn’t grow up in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire but is a blow-in from the eastern suburbs. A more Cronulla move would be to get a tattoo of the Southern Cross inside each eyelid, each blink delivering a reminder in stereo. Though Strewth correspondent Stephen McDonald suggests a sturdier alternative: “You could have just had your eyelids pierced with the holes in the shape of the stars of the Southern Cross.”

Knuckle up

Speaking of Julia Banks, the only MP in the government to have wrested a seat from Labor at the last election yesterday dropped a bunker buster of an announcement of her decision to bail at the next election. Indeed, she went as far as citing bullying and intimidation. Who among her colleagues was destined to respond with just the right words? Step forward Craig Kelly, like a jolly creature emerging from his burrow into the preferred natural habitat that is a Sky News studio, where he bestowed this belated wisdom upon her: “You’ve got to roll with the punches.”

Over water matter

The missive in our inbox started with what we initially mistook for an announcement from Peter Dutton: “I’m on your side when times get rough / And friends just can’t be found / Like a bridge over troubled water.” A little left-field, but Dutton’s been through a bit. But then we remembered we were not an au pair in a spot of visa trouble and realised it wasn’t Dutton at all, but publicist Max Markson pumping out yet another of his enthralling tenuous press releases.

Looking for trouble

Some stuff just won’t die. When Anthony Albanese mused on the special envoy role carved out of the ether as a “make-work program for Tony Abbott to keep him out of trouble, to send him away from partyroom meetings”, a short exchange followed.

Journo: “If this is a job to keep aspiring leaders away from the main game, does that mean you’ll be taking it on if Labor wins the election?”

Albo: “Well, I don’t think that’s a question that is deserving of an answer.”

(On a brighter ALP note, Tony Burke and Julian Hill put out a release under a heading that made them sound like doomed explorers: Burke and Hill.)

No stuffing here

A brief post-coup exchange on FiveAA between David Penberthy and Will Goodings and their guest Christopher Pyne: “Do you ever just think, ‘Stuff this for a joke, I have been there for almost three decades and have had enough?’ ” Replied Pyne: “I have never thought ‘Stuff this for a joke’, no.”

No frocking around

The Australian’s opinion editor, Alan Howe, has met up again with former Israeli PM Ehud Barak in Melbourne. Israel’s most decorated soldier turned up for lunch dressed, for better or for worse, as a man. Barak was disguised as a woman, and in a darker mood, back when he commanded a mission to “deal with” three Palestinians involved in the Munich massacre of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes. Howe reports the 76-year-old is in good shape: “I don’t reckon his dress size would have changed at all.”

[e-mail]