Strewth: the mountaineer

Politicians’ transcripts tend to start with a rundown of topics covered. But once in a while someone tries to liven things up.

Stop the boats, start the aqua buses.

Politicians’ official transcripts tend to start with a rundown of the topics covered, generally in the order in which they were covered. But once in a while someone tries to liven things up. Scott Morrison’s office was in the mood for a spot of tradition-bucking yesterday. At the top of the transcript of the Prime Minister’s appearance yesterday on Ten’s Studio 10, the list reads, “Subjects: Terrorist attack on Bourke Street; Nauru; polls.” You’d deduce polls were the last subject. You’d be wrong. The interview began thus, “Welcome, PM, it’s good to have you here after a busy weekend. Can we talk about polls?” Morrison came over a bit like an Armando Iannucci character: “I knew when stepping up into this role, there’d be a big, big mountain to climb and a very steep one. But I’ve climbed those mountains before, as has our party on many occasions and that’s what we intend to do.”

Stop the boats, start the aqua buses.

Ultimately it got to the question of the prime ministerial bus, the ScoMobile.

PM: “It’s parked up on the Gold Coast.”

Host: “Oh, that’s a shame. That’s a shame because we’ve got some great tweets that have come through on social media showing some alternative slogans on the ScoMobile: ‘It’s the same one we threw Malcolm under.’ Is that a bit mean?”

PM: “Yeah, well, Twitter, who would have thought they would come up with that sort of nonsense? What a surprise.”

So how to get a bit of ScoMomentum happening? Perhaps a novelty seafaring bus such as the one pictured. In a nod to ScoMo’s favourite phrase for shutting down journalists’ questions during his immigration days, it could be dubbed HMAS On-Water Motor. Just a thought.

Like clockwork

Labor frontbencher Richard Marles took some time off from being a Sky News host to be a Sky News guest yesterday and offer the least contentious views on Newspoll yet offered: “The Newspoll happens every two weeks and there’ll be another one two weeks from now.” We challenge anyone to disagree.

Happy once more

Labor MP Ross Hart was in his happy place. “It’s always a great day to have my federal colleagues here in Tasmania but it’s a particularly fantastic day to have Tanya Plibersek, the deputy leader of the Australian Labor Party, here in Launceston to talk about education.” A contrast to that time in June when he made an unsolicited phone call to the Tasmania Talks show, only for host Brian Carlton to drag him into a vortex of questions about Bill Shorten’s unexpected but exciting captain’s call on tax cuts. Hart’s repeated attempts to sidestep Carlton’s questions on whether he supported Shorten made up for any shortcomings in valour. As we wrote at the time: “Hart tried fending off Carlton with what was surely one of the more magnificently optimistic sentences to have passed a politician’s lips since the day Gough Whitlam assured his colleagues John Kerr was all right. To wit: ‘Let’s have a conversation about that at another time.’ If only St Peter had thought to say that.” That was then. Yesterday brought joy and Plibersek: “It’s great to be here with Ross.” It’s a beautiful narrative arc calling out to have an opera wrapped around it.

The enigma of Doug

During his thundering about the government funding cut to Foodbank, Labor senator Doug “Rrrrabble” Cameron showed he was willing to experiment with streamlining his language a bit.

Journo: “Do you know why, though? Have they given any reason why they would cut something like that?”

Cameron: “I just think they are stupid.”

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