Strewth: United by Mal

In the Alan Jones universe, is there any unifying force more powerful than Malcolm Turnbull?

Radio host Alan Jones. Photo: AAP

It’s not as though Alan Jones has hidden his admiration for Kristina Keneally in the past. Back in March 2011, during the final weeks of Keneally’s brief stint as premier of NSW, the 2GB broadcaster spoke in her defence to Fairfax Media: “It would be unfair to brand her with this mess in NSW. She has come in at five to midnight. She is behind 40-0 at halftime but she comes out at halftime and looks like the freshest player on the field. That takes tremendous resources, reserve and resilience. I give her credit for that — but she is going to be annihilated.”

Labor senator Kristina Keneally. Photo: Lyndon Mechielsen

Which is just how it unfolded at the ballot box. But Jones maintained she had the makings of a future Labor leader. So to yesterday and his interview with the now senator Keneally. “Well, Kristina Keneally, the former NSW premier, is certainly making her mark on the federal scene — that doesn’t surprise me,” he said before alighting on the crucial ingredient. “Her latest revelation is another astonishing metaphor of the Turnbull government.” In the Jones universe, is there any unifying force more powerful than Malcolm Turnbull? Jones’s fraught feelings about the member for Wentworth have been explored in this space before and probably will be again — not least because some of their on-air ding-dongs transcend their unrelenting brutality and mutual contempt to foster an appreciation for this nation’s democracy that is, in roughly equal parts, sublime and hilarious.

Reef madness

Yesterday, though, we had to make do with Turnbull being tried in absentia. Offered up as Exhibit A for the prosecution was “another astonishing metaphor of the Turnbull government”. Jonesy took no pleasure in laying it out: “Yesterday, in Senate estimates, Kristina Keneally discovered — and you have to say this slowly, because — I mean, they barely moved on the drought scene … Kristina Keneally revealed, and the government had no answers, that the Turnbull government has allocated $444 million — almost half a billion — to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.” Not an outfit familiar to Jones. “I might add, whoever the hell they are,” he said. Consider it added! After some further anger, Jones turned to his guest for further illumination: “What the hell is going on here?” And Keneally was very obliging, but it was hard to go past Jones’s end of the performance, not least the care he took to reiterate that the foundation was a “piddling little outfit”, unlike the amount of unsolicited dough they’ve just scored, which is a shit-ton. (Not Jones’s precise words; we’re paraphrasing.) But greatest of all is the conclusion. Having thanked Keneally for her work, Jones ended on this bit of rage verse: “I mean, you can’t get your head around it. Half a billion dollars. No tender, no nothing. No tender. It just goes on and on. It’s called the Turnbull government.”

Cutlery at six paces

That’s not all Jonesy hammered Turnbull on yesterday. He also had a crack at the PM for his cutlery-assisted consumption of a beloved national dish. Having already done him over power prices and the drought, Jones put down these measly popguns and reached for his blunderbuss: “What would he know? He doesn’t even know to eat a pie.” Blam! Surprisingly, Turnbull’s honour won stout support during the morning from New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister, Winston Peters. Invited on Twitter to weigh in on the pie incident, Peters obliged with gusto: “In support of @TurnbullMalcolm, I don’t give a rat’s derriere what people think I’ll eat a pie with a knife and fork. Some pies are very flaky, and sometimes you want to put sauce on.” We’ll award points for “I don’t give a rat’s derriere”, but we would have given more for “I don’t give a flying fork”.

Top tips

The PM would’ve been cheered to find that in The Sydney Morning Herald he was being offered advice on how to win an election — by John Hewson.

Fun while it lasted

Yesterday we reported on Scott Morrison’s valiant if short-lived effort to add variety amid the PM’s tireless attempts to accuse Bill Shorten of lies. “He just has a bunch of hot air that he pushes out and tries to frighten people at every electoral opportunity he gets,” he ventured, before losing his courage and returning to the safety of the formula: “He tells lies, basically.” Yesterday ScoMo didn’t even try beyond: “This lie that Bill Shorten is telling.”

Motivational thought

Let us draw to a close with this sentiment from senator Cory Bernardi: “I love experiencing new things. It opens the mind to possibilities and potential that otherwise may lie unfulfilled.”

[e-mail]