A NSW state minister walks into a bar and…
OK. This is one of those friend-of-a-friend yarns – but one we can’t resist.
Over the weekend – allegedly – a friend of friend of a Crikey reader who works
for a snooker table manufacturer told this tale at an entirely reputable
barbie. The Hon Joe Tripodi – allegedly – walked into the snooker table emporium and replied
– allegedly – to a polite “Can I help you?” with a “Don’t you know who I am?
Don’t you watch TV?” To which the sales assistant – allegedly – replied: “Are
you one of the Wiggles?”

Equal time political f-ck-ups. “If O’Leary
spins it, we’ll run it,” seems to be the motto at newsrooms across the country.
True, Kimbo got Ian Macfarlane confused with Ian Macfarlane. The Oz is still at
it today. But what about the egregious errors from the Government? We have a
Treasurer who can’t count, for example. Look at this Hansard extract from
Question Time last Tuesday:

Under a new
arrangement which I have announced today, E10 will be included in the ACCC’s
price monitoring program. There is daily monitoring of 3,600 sites across Australia.
From memory, there are around 6,000 sites in Australia,
so that is nearly 50% of the sites.”

60% of 6000 is actually 3600, as
any 12 year old can tell you. Bring on the arithmetic summit! Then there’s the
terribly out of touch Prime Minister who’s shown that he doesn’t know the
difference between a credit card and a savings account:

What we’re
announcing this morning is that next year there will be a scheme whereby people
can effectively, by producing and swiping their Medicare and credit cards, they
can effectively pay their bill and set in train a process whereby within 24
hours their bank account will be credited with their Medicare rebate.