Strewth: road scholars

The Queensland Labor Party couldn’t contain its excitement yesterday. Bill Shorten is to hit the highway again.

“Stay tuned, something very exciting is happening tomorrow!” the Queensland chapter of the Labor Party tweeted yesterday. To dampen any excitement about a Kevin Komeback, the tweet included a map of Queensland and a question mark parked over a photograph of an open road. We imagine the excitement is that a Bill Shorten bus is set to hit the road again, as reported a few days ago in this august organ. One imagines some care will be taken not to replicate the reliance on wings and pressurised cabins that characterised Scott Morrison’s Queensland bus jaunt. Fingers crossed it goes more smoothly than the time in the 2016 election campaign when the Bill bus ground to a halt in the NSW town of Port Macquarie, Shorten’s stationary face left beaming into the traffic. At the time, our first thought was it might have been a consequence of then ALP campaign director George Wright’s email to supporters: “Every dollar counts — we need to get corflute posters on the streets, put advertisements on television and pump petrol into the bus.” A bit of petrol pumped into a diesel-powered bus would have proved that, contrary to Bill Heslop’s belief in Muriel’s Wedding, you can stop progress. It turned out the bus had merely run aground during a tricky reverse, but Sam Dastyari was there to help get it all back on the road and complete an odyssey that ultimately claimed three lives — two kangaroos and an owl — and saw Dasher plant a kiss on the giant Shorten bus-side photo. All perfect training for I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!, now we think about it. Just don’t forget to refer to it as the Bill Bus. References to it as the Shorten Bus in 2016 died soon after Strewth and others helpfully pointed out the similarity to Shortbus, a 2006 flick summarised on imdb.com as: “A group of New Yorkers … converge at an underground salon infamous for its blend of art, music, politics and carnality.”

Prose and mod cons

During this latest stretch of wilting heat, more than a few have found their thoughts wandering towards swimming pools. Not least Bill Shorten, who was in the Top End earlier this week to chat about enhancing Palmerston pool. While he was at it, he popped in a bit of what, in a certain light if you squint a tiny bit, conveyed the faintest hint of Class Warfare Lite: “Now, it might be all right for the Liberals — some of whom are rich enough to have big lavish pools in their own homes, but I want every Aussie kid to have a chance to learn to swim, not just those who can afford their own swimming pool, in-built with all the mod cons.” Perhaps it would come as a shock to Shorten to learn his old Moonee Ponds home — which changed hands most recently in 2017 for $3 million — features, according to Domain’s report, a deep solar-heated pool — at least that’s a pool kids could learn to swim in all year round, and solar sets a good example.

Short but sweet

There was a brief amendment to Andrew Broad’s Wikipedia entry yesterday: “He was assistant minister to the Deputy Prime Minister from September 2018 until his resignation over a ‘sugar daddy’ sex scandal in December 2018. He, like Justin Timberlake, is trying to ‘bring sexy back’.” Alas, its time in the sun was so brief it made your average mayfly look like Methuselah.

Show of support

One of the smaller specialties Labor MPs have been developing in recent months has been press conferences that end without a single question being asked. A fresh and welcome twist on the genre was provided by shadow treasurer Chris Bowen’s presser yesterday. The end approached in time-honoured fashion. To wit: “So I think the PM’s visit is just a reminder that Peter Dutton has bungled this particular issue.” Then this.

Bowen: “Happy to take any questions.”

Constituent: “How are you, sir?”

Bowen: “G’day, mate. A bit of support there from a passer-by. Any questions? No?”

We could be pedantic and note Bowen didn’t actually answer his constituent’s question, but let’s leave that particular hair unsplit.

With love

On a different note, we’ll finish with a salute to our friend Trevor Jamison. An artist of both building and brush; a man in love with family and fudge; a drinker of melted ice cream and maker of calendars; a careful observer and energetic talker; a man whose face and mighty eyebrows worked together so perfectly that when he smiled it was like a burst of sunshine beneath thunder clouds; a man who made you feel like your mere arrival was better than even that fudge. Mortality has made the mistake of giving Trevor an early mark — a terribly, terribly early mark. May sweetness meet you, Trev.

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