He mightn’t be able to get the top job, but
it’s nice that Peter Costello is carving out a role for himself as Cabinet’s
comedy relief. “Procreate and cherish.”
Very nice, Treasurer.

It’s even nicer that he gets good reviews,
with the Daily Telegraphpraising
his “witty evocation” of Arthur Calwell’s “populate or perish” at the
Australian Bureau of Statistics census launch yesterday. And in keeping
with all this niceness, we
won’t make a Calwell gag. Calwell became leader, after all.

Instead we’ll just content ourselves with
two observations. It was interesting to see the Treasurer
launching the census – the biggest doing the numbers exercise in the country. And all
that talk about children and fathers doing more.
Does this mean he’s going to tell us soon that he wants to spend more time with
his family?

PS More Costello comedy ‘n’ kids is
available at the Ambleside Primary School site.
At least we hope it’s comedy…