Strewth: Scott Morrison could learn from Susan Renouf

As Scott Morrison booms about ‘the Canberra bubble’, it’s instructive to look back on a more innocent time.

Sheet storm

In a time when any inquiry into his ministers’ actions has Scott Morrison booming about “the Canberra bubble”, it’s instructive to look back on a more innocent time when people were more ready to pull the pin. We were very familiar with Mick Young and the Paddington Bear Affair, in which one of Bob Hawke’s very able ministers quit after forgetting to declare a souvenir when jetting back to Australia. That surely remains the gold standard in career-end bathos. But we’re thankful to The Monthly’s editor Nick Feik for alerting us to the time Andrew Peacock — then a junior minister in John Gorton’s government — offered to fall on his sword after his then wife, Susan Renouf, did an ad for bedsheet-mongers Sheridan. As the headline on the ad went: “Mrs Andrew Peacock is wife to Australia’s youngest federal minister and one of the most vital women on the Australian scene. She chose to decorate her bedroom around Sheridan Printed Sheets.”

‘Don’t be a bloody fool’ — Susan Renouf, Andrew Peacock and a scandal from a more genteel era.

Renouf reflected on the ad and the sheet storm that followed in an episode of the ABC’s Australian Story in 2015. Over to Aunty: “She intended to donate her $50 fee to buy classroom equipment for children in Papua New Guinea that she had met on a ministerial trip. But the advertisement, featured in Woman’s Day and Women’s Weekly magazines, caused a sensation. Liberal Party traditionalists muttered about an ‘abuse of Westminster traditions’.” Cue a media hullabaloo. Renouf told Australian Story: “Andrew was mortified. It was horrible for me because I felt I’d ruined his career.” Peacock offered to resign, but opposition leader Gough Whitlam dismissed it as a triviality and Gorton instructed him to not be “a bloody fool”.

Cool running down

Like diplomatic communiques and the Senate estimates movements of Penny Wong’s eyebrows, Speaker Tony Smith’s language is a rich but subtle affair, its restraint and civility gently masking the devastation that is all too apparent to trained observers. Yesterday, even as he opted to not refer Tim Wilson over his ambitiously contentious running of the franking credits roadshow, he administered a resounding cuff behind one of the Liberal MP’s ears: “Whilst I do not believe the actions of (Wilson) meet the test in section 4 of the Privileges Act, I believe they have not always conformed with what I see as the conventions usually observed by chairs of house committees … including having a private website authorised by and with badging of the chair, which appeared to solicit submissions and attendees from just one perspective.” Wilson got up to say his piece, but part-way through Smith gently but firmly instructed him to save his words for “other public debates”. Which at least left both ears ringing in perfect stereo.

Milk and honey

In a rare(ish) moment on 2GB, Alan Jones declared that on the matter of milk, Labor’s agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon “is the only politician I should say who is currently making sense”. Happily he had Fitzgibbon on the line and the tone of the interview can be found in a selection of Jones’s responses: “Correct, yep”; “That’s what you’d hope”; “Correct”; “Correct”; “Correct”; “Correct”; “Correct”; “Good on you.” Just beautiful.

Close call

There was a buzz yesterday on Radio National when host Fran Kelly said she’d be interviewing Richard Dreyfuss. The actor could have talked about his time making Jaws, a film in which a shark spends a lot of time trying to stop a boat after castmate Roy Scheider used the chum bucket. It came as a small anticlimax when the chat turned out to be with opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus.

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