STEVE WHAN says he’s had a “baptism of fire and water”.
It’s been a big week for Whan, fresh in the job as NSW Emergency Services Minister. It must have been even more eye-opening for first-time visitors to Australia, who’ve had a baptism of fire, flood, sharks and, if they could bear to watch, backstabbing politics. Surely the most treacherous place on earth, this sodden, sunburnt country. But if visitors looked again they would have discovered, too, a big-hearted nation that responds to its grief with astonishing generosity a can-do, soldier-on country whose people can cry with candour but who temper their mourning with good humour and even comic relief. “They were untouched,” he said. “We’ve still got some underwear and socks. If I’d known it was going to come through I would have done a bigger load of washing.” Visitors should understand that this is the quintessence of our humour. Understated. Stoic. Matter-of-fact. Downright funny and heartbreaking all at once. You’ve Got a Friend was not the soundtrack for Monday. Julie Bishop had few pals to speak of among her Liberal colleagues. Malcolm Turnbull had been standing right behind his deputy all weekend after the Herald revealed a push to dump her as shadow treasurer. Many Libs, as it turned out, had been standing behind her. Bishop quit the portfolio. She fell on her sword but all the blood came from the multiple wounds in her back.
Then Joe Hockey, stepping into the ring as the new treasury spokesman, got a bloody nose when it was claimed he was not the heavyweight champion but the second. That is, that he was Turnbull’s second choice after Peter Costello.