Judith Ireland Breaking News Reporter
February 15, 2013
A Parliamentary attendant delivers a Valentines Day chocolate rose from the Opposition to ALP backbencher Kevin Rudd. Photo: Andrew Meares
When is a leak not a leak?
The Coalition suffered its second high-level leak in a week on Thursday, with reports it is thinking about building four score and twenty dams around Australia.
But instead of leaping away - stunned - from reports of the draft discussion paper, Tony Abbott was only too happy to discuss.
Kelly O'Dwyer Liberal backbencher gives a chocolate rose to Kevin Rudd. Photo: Andrew Meares
He opined that while the policy was not finalised, it was a ''good paper'' (ie, we're waving, not drowning). ''What we want to avoid is the dam phobia which has afflicted our country for at least a generation,'' he told reporters in downtown Queanbeyan.
The government's water man, Tony Burke, begged to vehemently disagree, describing the plan as ''completely wild'' - and not in the fun, pool party kind of way.
Trade doctor Craig Emerson also dismissed it as ''policy in chaos''. ''It gets weirder and weirder by the day,'' he said.
Speaking of weird, with Valentine's Day on the go, the loving feeling even made it to Parliament. In the morning, Joe Hockey and Bill Shorten crammed into a studio for a radio rendezvous. Here, the shadow treasurer greeted the Workplace Minister with that well-known pick-up line: ''I dreamt about you the other night.'' Shorten replied (after a pause): ''You are only human.''
The tenderness carried over into the House, where Coalition whip Warren Entsch decorated the opposition benches with shiny red chocolate roses.
The Labor side was noticeably rose-free until question time, when the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, found a flower on her table. She examined it momentarily (in her line of work she usually had secret un-admirers, rather than the other way around), before flinging it aside.
With proceedings under way, the Coalition fired shots on the mining tax, income tax and job creation, while Labor countered with modern families and recent developments in the economy.
However, it soon became apparent that the real action was happening away from the despatch box.
Coalition MPs were diligently summoning attendants - not to pass a note or fetch water, but to deliver their roses, one by one, to Kevin Rudd.
Rudd had no less than three fleurs lined up on his desk, before Albo - in no mood for romance - blocked two attendants en route, sending the chocs out of the chamber.
But just when love seemed to be lost, Liberal backbencher Kelly O'Dwyer took matters into her own hands, crossing into enemy territory to deliver another rose to Rudd. The member for Higgins smirked the smirk of a schoolkid who had been instructed by their friend to tell a boy they LIKED him.
The House was soon distracted by Burke, who had a Dixer on issues around dam policies. In the excitement, Rudd's roses mysteriously vanished.
Investigations suggest that his neighbour Anthony Byrne did not eat them. Nor did Jenny Macklin claw them back. Rather, Rudd stashed the blooms in his desk drawer. So they should be there when Parliament resumes in March. For whoever happens to be occupying that backbench spot.
