(Image: Mitchell Squire/Private Media)

WA Bizarro World Strange things are happening on the other side of the Great Wall of McGowan. With Western Australian Liberals so resigned to a generational wipeout at the hands of Mark McGowan’s Labor that they’re now just begging voters not to give him too big a majority, the parties appear to be swapping rhetoric.

Opposition leader Zak Kirkup surprised us all by announcing a $400 million renewable energy plan that would see coal phased out. McGowan replied that the Libs’ plan would mean “many many billions of extra debt, huge increase in family bills, rolling blackouts across the state and huge job losses”. Where have we heard that kind of talk before?

Now, the Libs have pitched fast-tracked new public housing aimed at reducing homelessness. Labor have responded with hammering the uncosted policy as “financially reckless”.

We will brace ourselves for the news that McGowan has called Kirkup’s plan to expand the legal reasons for strike action “lawless and anti business”.

News Corp puts itself on blast When Facebook followed through with its threat to block all news content in Australia, the Murdoch media cried foul. “An act of political madness and self-harm,” blustered The Oz’s political editor and Friend of the Column, Dennis “The Curve” Shanahan.

But it wasn’t all that long ago when News Corp itself was suggesting the same thing. In a submission made to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission over the media bargaining code last year, News Corp actually proposed Facebook or other digital platforms stop posting news content until deals were reached with all publishers.

This “collective boycott” was suggested by News Corp as a means to “break any deadlock in bilateral relations”.

Rare ScoMos No prime minister has loved a photo-op like Scott Morrison. But even by his standards, yesterday’s beginning of the vaccine rollout was a masterpiece in political performance art.

Morrison rocked up in beige chinos and an Australian flag mask to watch Jane Malysiak get Australia’s first jab. When it was ScoMo’s turn, the prime minister had donned a special Australian Diamonds netball jersey (a subtle show of just how much he “gets” women — thanks Jenny) with “SCOMO” on the back.

Quite the sartorial choice for a bloke who just a month ago told Cricket Australia to keep the politics out of sport.

Keeping up with the Kellys Craig Kelly, chair of parliament’s Facebook Uncle Caucus, just made a neat profit last weekend, after selling the family home (purchase price: $997,000 back in 2010) for a cool $1.65 million. Sale of the five bedder in Illawong in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire came at the end of a rough week for the conspiracy theorist Liberal MP, who was banned from Facebook once again, and whose staffer faces multiple allegations of inappropriate behaviour toward teenage interns.

A tipster attended the auction, and gave us some insights into the tacky suburbia of Casa Kelly. Bookcases were lined with multiple old volumes of old encyclopaedias, interior design that says “we need to keep the shelves full but don’t actually read books”. Also noted were the “Chanel No. 5” perfumed candles, produced not by the French luxury brand but a home studio in Engadine.

Meanwhile, posters like this were popping up around the neighbourhood. Perhaps that’s why Kelly wants out. That or an impending preselection rolling…