Hillary Bray = great gossip, especially this week. Nuff said.

For some strange reason Hillary wasn’t invited to the very private wedding last weekend between Parly Sec Trish Worth and her former parliamentary colleague Michael Cobb, best known for the difficulties he had claiming travel allowance.

Still, Hillary hopes the happy couple enjoy their honeymoon. Presumably they are going off on a trip.

As a wedding gift, Hillary is pleased to offer some advice to the pair: Let Trish’s office look after all the spouse travel arrangements. All!

Election fever

Three cheers for the Short Man too for turning on the cold tap and dampening down all those excitable types going on about a double dissolution election. DD triggers get tripped often enough but that doesn’t necessarily mean an election follows immediately.

It was only back in November last year just over six months ago that the Government pulled off a third election win. Even if the Rodent is going to rat on his “when I’m 64” promise to consider his position and Hillary wouldn’t trust the runt to retire for a minute why would he go to an election now?

Why try for another three years when he’s already got almost two and half up his sleeve? As the great man said himself, the idea is just “silly”.

One of the people threatening a DD earlier had been the Treas. If he still feels relaxed and comfortable in the top job, the Short Man knows an election would be much more useful, say, near his birthday next year.

Mar’n Fer’son’s recycling

Residents of Mumbles Ferguson’s electorate of Batman have been left scratching their heads after receiving a 20 page booklet entitled “Martin Ferguson’s Green Guide”. It’s full of handy recycling hints – but seems to have been recycled itself from something produced by the comrades from the West.

Under the scintillating headline “Saving the environment while in transit” it says “Many Perth people have developed a very dangerous addiction to fossil fuel… The City of Perth offers substantial parking discounts to people who car pool.” Then, under “Saving Water”, it talks about how “Perth has doubled its population in the lat (sic) 20 years” and “In WA we have had an extensive media campaign” on the matter.

Finally, the booklet has Mumbles’ number, 9482 4644, on the cover, but says inside “Call my office on 9470 4131” and that’s how we can track down its source. Add the Perth area code and call and you’ll get the office of Kim Wilkie, the Member for Swan. Let him know that you’re delighted to see that his garbage is being recycled.

Atrocities of war

After Tuesday’s inconclusive Party Room meeting, a split opened in the Liberal Right between the common or garden conservatives and the annexe the Sudetenland faction over the International Criminal Court.

Right-wingers such as Bazzas Haase and Wakelin and the little-known Margaret May and fruitloops like Sophie “Uptown Girl” Panopolous, “Brunhilde” Bishop, “Clarabelle” Ferris and the well known corporal punishment enthusiast Ross Lightfoot now hopelessly divided.

Even uglier has been the brawling between Ho Chi Minchin and his usual ally, Foreign Minister Lex Loser. Imagine The Fat Slags battling it out over the town spunk and you have some idea of how ghastly the spectacle is.

In the wake of the decision late on Wednesday night to back the Court, Hillary scraped the egg of her face and made an omelette for breakfast the following morning. And yes, there was enough for a couple of servings – but it was nothing compared to the quantity of yolk covering a few figures such as Brunhilde, the Uptown Girl and Alby “Sergeant” Schultz.

Hillary hears a crack contingent of the Catering Corps was dispatched from Duntroon to deal with the problem. Such was that mess that the only solution they could offer was to drain Lake Burley Griffin and fill it with hollandaise. An environmental impact statement is currently being prepared.

The Prime Miniature announced on Thursday that Australia would ratify the ICC agreement and also deposit a declaration stating a number of stipulations to “reaffirm the primacy of Australian law and the Australian legal system in relation to prosecution of offences under the legislation giving effect to the statute” and declaring that “no person can be arrested on a warrant issued by the court or surrendered to the court without the prior consent of the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth”.

Easy-peasey, really and good on the Little Fella for doing the right thing.

But what about the Court’s noisy opponents? Sergeant Schultz announced on Wednesday morning that he remained resolute in his decision to cross the floor and vote against ratification. He seems to have been strangely silent since. Perhaps, like his namesake, all he’d have to say would be “I know nuzzing. Nuzzing!”.

There hasn’t been a peep out of the Uptown Girl, either – despite her rush into print earlier in the week with an item in the Age condemning international organisations. Will she now turn her attention to other global bodies than threaten us all like, say, the International Democratic Union?

And what of Brunhilde? In an exquisite piece of timing her own little piece on the matter appeared in the SMH on Thursday at just the same time the decision was leaking out. When asked about crossing the floor that morning, she told the ABC “I will say this, I have crossed oceans and continents, this matter is so important”. Hillary can only take this to mean that when the vote comes she’ll stand up in the House and sing “Climb Every Mountain”. Presumably the tellers will take that as an abstention.

Junk mail

“New South Wales will never have a Kennett”, Bob Carr used to like to tell the top end of town when Jeff was still a name to conjure with, “because new South Wales will never have a Cain or a Kirner”.

Yep. Ever since the days of Bill McKell, the New South Wales right have prided themselves on just how business they can be. It fits with the pragmatism that ill-intentioned outsiders sometimes call corruption.

Treasurer Michael Egan is no exception. Yes, his Budgets are built on land boom proceeds, dodgy accounting and even dodgier spin but the great man would beg to differ.

Indeed, our maaate Megan writes scathing letters to journos who dare to see the facts differently or, rather, to their editors. He’s kindly given Crikey a pile of them, too. We’ve already shared them with subscribers, and you can have a look at them here

A new job for Senator Herron?

Crikey broke the story last year how poor old John Herron was sitting in a packed-up office waiting for confirmation of an overseas posting after loyally supporting the Prime Miniature and leaving the Cabinet when the Rodent ratted on the deal. Now, there are reports that Herron might get another ambassador’s appointment – but the supposed source is curious in the extreme.

The Courier Mail carried an article by Denis Atkins on Wednesday reporting that Herron may take over from former Speaker Bob Halverson as ambassador to Ireland and the Holy See. However, the alleged source of the item seems to be more interesting than the story itself. Corridor talk has attributed the yarn to one Dave Moore, an adviser to Herron’s fellow Queenslander, Employment Services Minister Mal Brough.

While Atkins’ story said that Hillary’s old pal Santo Santoro and Queensland Liberal Party president Michael Caltabiano would be the likely candidates for Herron’s Senate spot, other observers beg to differ. As they rightly point out, Santo has always bluntly said in the past that he wants to be the state parliamentary leader – full stop. There is no reason to assume that he has changed his mind.

The real Senate wannabe here seems to be none other than Moore himself, who wants to join his old boss Ian MacDonald on the red leather benches. Moore is a serial preselection candidate who came to prominence last year with a bid for Mundingburra where he sagely said he’d cut a preference deal with One Nation.

As for his boss, Brough seems to have been taking assertiveness training. He boasted at the Liberal federal council meeting that he was taking over the Queensland party because he was sick of waiting for his allies to do something. Brough has been busy undertaking what could euphemistically be called “branch development”, and says he plans to bring none other than that keen recruiter Michael “Khemlani” Johnson into the fold to maximise his muscle.

As for floating the names of Santoro and Caltabiano as prospective Senate candidates, it seems to be a move on Brough’s behalf to run some internal wedges and make the Carroll faction the issue in this all.

Tampa tipple

The ugly way the Rodent and the Cadaver have exploited refugees has been enough to drive any liberal-minded Australian to drink and if you’ve been so affected, then here’s the tipple to turn to. Tampa vodka.

What’s that you’re saying? Too many Malibu pineapples already, Hillary? No, no it all makes sense.

The national drink of Norway is aquavit a potato based brew similar to vodka. Sometimes like vodka you get aquavit varieties flavoured with herbs and spices or fruit. Then you get linie aquavit aquavit that has crossed the linie, the Norwegian word for the line, the equator. This has been a special delicacy for almost two centuries.

Back in the 1805, an optimistic distiller by the name of Jorgen Lysholm thought he’d try to crack the Asian market and shipped a batch of aquavit from Trondheim to the Dutch East Indies. Surprise, surprise some time later five barrels ended up back on his front door step. Old Jorgen thought he’d drown his sorrows, cracked one open and discovered it had developed a richer flavour. Ever since then Norwegians have been tossing the stuff into oak sherry casks and sending it across the equator to the Southern Hemisphere and back. They reckon sloshing around in the barrel does wonders for it.

Linie aquavit has become the stuff of connoisseurs and Norwegian connoisseurs, like all other connoisseurs, find a certain degree of ritual adds to their pleasure. That means that if you hold a bottle of any half decent linie aquavit up to the light and look through to the back of the label, you’ll find the details of when the grog crossed the equator heading south, the date it crossed heading home and, of course, the name of the ship it was carried on.

The MV Tampa regularly travels to Australia and it regularly takes a load of aquavit along for the ride. And the Tampa scandal was as big a story in Norway as it was in Australia, so Tampa linie aquavit has become a much sought-after drop amongst our Scandinavian friends.

Now, if only we can find something to bring a bit of cheer to the poor sods they picked up on the way.

The inquisition pulls in Meg

Poor old Mystic Meg. She loses the leadership, then 12 months later the Democrat thought police call her in because she puts the environment before ideology.

Yep. Some fascinating documents have fallen off the back of the Dems’ solar-power bicycle. They’rre a little big so we’ve had to run them separately, so why not click here and see just what the fuss is all about.

Integrity in the Territory?

Who ever thought they’d see a line with the words “integrity”, “ethics” and “the Northern Territory Assembly” without “complete lack of” or “thorough contempt for” in there as well? Yet, after today, the Northern Territory should soon have the highest standards (on paper, anyway) of any Australian Parliament.

Clare Martin’s Labor administration has proposed a new code that will, amongst other things, ban former members from working in any business related to their parliamentary duties for 12 months after the leave. It has been released for discussion and should be passed into law in November.

A similar scheme for the Commonwealth Parliament has been suggested by the Australian Democrats, but has been seen as a little too radical for the Rodent and his rabble let alone former ministers with lucrative jobs in their old portfolio areas like Wreathie and Michael Wooldridge to cope with.

In true Territory style, this should all be taken with a pinch of salt. Calls for a code were first made after Labor MP Matthew Bonson got involved in a biff-up with a basketball team mate. The police won’t say who was responsible, but neither man was charged and going by the bruises, Bonson won. Still, it’s a move in the right direction particularly given the distance the CLP had travelled down the same road Joh lead the Queensland Nats along before they lost.

Now, you might as well finish off the job and borrow another leaf from the US and slap a similar ban on ministerial staff when they leave. Oh yeah. You should also ask them not to shag in the Speaker’s seat on the way out.

Target Margaret

July 1 and a new Senate looms ever closer and the jostling continues in the ACT Liberal Party as job-starved hacks wait to see if Margaret Reid will hang onto the Senate Presidency. There are a lot of itchy trigger fingers.

With only a toytown parliament, the chance of a Senate spot is a glittering prize to the local Libs. After all, La Stupenda has spent the last 21 years in the only decent job available to them. Crikey has already reported talk that both members of former Assembly leadership team, Gary Humphries and Brendan Smythe, are sick of playing in the B team – but that’s only the very top of the list of names of possible contenders. Indeed, one local has observed “Never in the field of human conflict have so many spent so much time salivating over so little”.

So who else wants to take the leap from Lilliput? Add the name of another former Chief Minister to the mix none other than Kate “Whoops, I Did it Again” Carnell feverish speculation about celebrity imports such as Kieran Perkins or Deek, rumours about the long term ambitions of either Mr or Mrs Crosby, the prayers of a cargo cult who await the return of Andrew Robb to the shores of Lake Burley Griffin and stories that despite the fact that she’s guilty of thought crimes such as support for taxpayer funded maternity leave the PM might still back a tilt by Pru Goward (if she has an address other than Yass) and you have a heady mix.

No wonder some of the Territory’s Lilliputian Libs are already falling into a swoon.

Money for jam?

Just what is the real story of the Monbulk Liberal electorate council, its treasurer and its funds?

Labor MP Tony Robinson has told the Victorian Parliament that the last two have gone AWOL. Can anyone help?

Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup

Hillary hears staff from the Members Dining Room at Parliament House are up in arms over what they say is rude treatment from a neophyte MP and threatening to refuse him service. Who is the offender? Well, ugly rumours are naming one of Hillary’s oldest and dearest friends Michael “Khemlani” Johnson.

Lesse majeste

Speaking of Khemlani, we now have a possible indication of how he may vote in any leadership contest. He has been distributing a dummy certificate he can provide to worthy school students in the Ryan electorate and the name on the sample is “Little Johnny”.

Is Shardey being kosher?

Helen “Chardonnay” Shardey, the Liberal powerbroker in her lunchtime who represents Melbourne’s Jewish heartland of Caulfield in the Victorian State Parliament, is currently breaking in a new electorate officer.

Chardonnay has had problems with staff in the past particularly when one saw fit to pass on an alleged joke about the People of the Book that may not have gone down well with her voters using their parliamentary e-mail account. Since then, rumours say she has refused to authorise an official e-mail address for some staffers.

This time, however, such unpleasantness should be avoided. The new staffer, Matthew Zablud, did work for her while a student and his faithful service to Chardonnay in her party political struggles has been deserving of an earlier mention in Crikey. Still, the appointment appears to have caused trouble in nearby electorates.

Other staffers supposedly say Zablud’s appointment is a slur on their professionalism. Reports claim that they feel it has aggravated the perception of the public sector particularly in the political arena as a dumping ground for those unable to make it in the private sector. Young Matthew formerly worked at solicitors Tress Cocks and Maddox (the first law firm to act for someone in a defamation action against Crikey), and the story says he boasted how his father’s links with the firm helped land him a job as an articled clerk.

Indeed, some local Libs seem unable to yet decide if Chardonnay decided she needed a paid full time factional supporter, or whether she was being charitable and providing a safety net to save one of her own from a hard landing. After all, there’s a good case to be made for both.

PS Zablud put himself on the political map by signing up a number of extended family members to stack out one of the branches in Caulfield. Since they first appeared at an AGM, stories have claimed that some were so old and short sighted that they needed help filling out ballot papers. Indeed, some even claim that more ballots than members present were cast at the meeting and are concerned that young Matthew’s friends and relations may need treatment for schizophrenia.

Still, all of this may be nothing but malicious gossip, as the returning officer declared the results were valid the returning officer being a certain Member for Caulfield.

Cut and thrust of debate

Elderly and cashed up – Crikey readers will be familiar with that idiosyncratic journal Inside Canberra. Well, it and Crikey came up during the debate on the Workplace Relations Amendment (Secret Ballots for Protected Action) Bill on Wednesday.

We start with Labor geriatric Arch Bevis:

“The proposition in Workplace Relations Amendment (Secret Ballots for Protected Action) Bill 2002 has been in bills before the parliament on a number of occasions and has been rejected by the parliament before. It is worth noting that it was rejected by the parliament and not just the Labor Party I was interested to see the latest Inside Canberra of 14 June which has a comment

“Mr Hockey That’s a socialist rag!

“Mr Bevis Big Joe just labelled it a `socialist rag’, so there you go.

“Mr Hockey It is not as good as Crikey!”

There you go! A testimonial from our chief Parliamentary spruiker.

Big Joe along with Patrick Secker is one of the few Feds who has actually coughed up the measly 66 smackeroos a Crikey sub costs (compare that to the vastly inferior Inside Canberra). That means we can’t give him the free sub he would normally score under the terms of the Crikey Subs for Comment Scandal.

So, readers, how do you think we should reward our super salesman? Send your suggestions in to hillarybray@crikey.com.au and you could get Joe’s free sub. Hurry! Entries close next Friday, June 28.

Hillary Bray can be contacted at hillarybray@crikey.com.au