Strewth: Moments like these

Before the shell of Malcolm Turnbull emerged in Parliament House’s appositely chosen Blue Room, backbencher Craig Kelly was out being helpful.

Craig Kelly ar the House of Representatives. Picture: AAP

Before the shell of Malcolm Turnbull emerged to address media in Parliament House’s appositely chosen Blue Room, backbencher Craig Kelly was out being helpful. Evidently taking one of his breaks from his Sky News residency, he was on Radio National’s Breakfast explaining to Fran Kelly: “There is no leadership challenge at the moment.” As well as affording Kelly the opportunity to do a verbal double take, this provided a little flashback to November 3 last year when Tony Abbott’s benchmate Kevin Andrews declared Turnbull to be leader “at the moment”. Even fresher in the memory is Michael McCormack on February 19: “Barnaby Joyce at the moment has the support of the National Party — that’s what happens.” Thanks to the twists of fate, McCormack became Nationals leader a week later.

Control bad, stick good

Scott Morrison sounded like he was in his ideological sweet spot during a press conference last Wednesday. Encouraged to muse aloud about energy prices, the Treasurer said: “Price control has never really been a Liberal Party policy. It’s never been a Liberal value as my understanding of the Liberal Party — and I have a pretty reasonable one — you won’t find that enshrined in Liberal philosophy, I don’t think. But getting lower prices is by having appropriate mechanisms and economic policies that drive policies down.” Either out of modesty or sheer oversight his office didn’t transcribe this cri de coeur. Come yesterday, during the press conference with Turnbull (who looked like he was suffering from a fatigue of the soul) and Josh Frydenberg (who looked like he was suddenly wondering what he’d managed to get caught up in), ScoMo had recovered from his reticence about price control, taking a “big stick” to the energy companies. At this rate of progress, he’ll be shouting “Nationalise the bums!” by the end of the week.

The great defender

Someone who has been more consistent is Education Minister Simon Birmingham. Here he is on ABC Radio Adelaide in November 2009.

Matt Abraham: “Is Malcolm Turnbull dead in the water?”

Birmo: “Absolutely not, Malcolm Turnbull has had a very good win, a win in terms of taking the Liberal Party forward …”

And here he is on ABC’s News Breakfast with Virginia Trioli that same day: “I’ve been very clear throughout this debate that I am a supporter of Malcolm Turnbull and I’m a supporter of action on climate change.”

And here he is during a doorstop press conference yesterday.

Journo: “Is Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership under threat?

Birmo: “No, the government is focused as we have been for a long time on helping Australians with their cost-of-living pressures, in this case particularly driving down their energy costs.”

Accentuate the positive

Abbott, meanwhile, outlined his aims: “I am just interested in trying to ensure that Australians have the lowest possible power prices and that people’s jobs are safe.” Just not necessarily everyone’s. Cue Christopher Pyne on Radio National trying to pinpoint a speck of silver lining. He managed this: “Tony Abbott at least, to his credit, doesn’t talk behind closed doors to the media. He comes out and says it in the press … He has been quite negative about some of the aspects of the government and the PM for some time. At least he doesn’t do so anonymously.” So that’s something.

Bard instincts

In a monumentally poetic piece of timing, Pyne has just updated his entry in the parliamentary register of interests to include tickets to see Hamlet at the Adelaide Festival. Pyne was already across Macbeth, given his treatment of that Anthony Albanese speech: “This is the bloodied dagger masquerading as a speech from the member for Grayndler, plunged into the chest of the Leader of the Opposition.” Hamlet is chockers with ripe quotes, but Michael Smith shares with us a contribution from one of his blog readers, who nominates The Tempest — specifically the character Ariel — as the better Shakespearean choice for Pyne: “Ariel is Prospero’s eyes and ears throughout the play, using his magical abilities to cause the tempest in Act One … and to foil other characters’ plots to bring down his master.”

Waiting for Niko

It’s not quite a ghost in the machine, but the printer in the office of Labor MP Graham Perrett surprised everyone yesterday when it began spewing forth old letterhead bearing the name and beaming features of former Liberal MP Andrew Nikolic. Nikolic hasn’t been an MP since 2016.

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