As Ley wings in hard, PM serves up a gentler offer

Federal parliament is back this week (stay with us, please), and Opposition Leader Sussan Ley is set to gain the ascendancy over Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Well, in one important aspect at least.

Ley, three months into the job, is offering a mystery flight with herself as pilot as a prize in the Parliament House Press Gallery Midwinter Ball charity raffle. In contrast with the PM’s offer of, er, a game of tennis.

Traditionally, the quality of the leaders’ speeches, where they lightly roast assorted journalists, politicians, business executives and each other, is regarded as an inside-the-beltway equivalent of the Resolve Political Monitor about a leaders’ standing and reputation. Poor old Peter Dutton (remember him?) could never quite get the tone right and used to grind everyone’s gears.

But this year, Ley’s charity prize could prove more significant, offering a tinge of excitement with “a flight and a lunch you’ll never forget”.

“The leader will take two people on a return flight from Albury or Canberra in her Cessna-182. She will fly you and your guest to a mystery location for a classic Australian pub lunch. Shearing lessons from the leader are optional, but sharing ripping yarns over a cold Australian lager is mandatory.”

Public liability insurance presumably included.

Meanwhile, Albanese is offering a tennis match at the Lodge, with “hospitality and generous refreshments assured for four people”.

Ley’s prize has thus far attracted zero bids. Late on Sunday, Bruce O’Connor bid $5001, a single dollar above the reserve, for the right to play a tennis match with (or against) the PM.

Also still very much up for grabs is the opportunity to be the plus one of independent Senator David Pocock (despite the reserve being $3000 lower) at a dinner in November at Canberra’s QT Hotel to raise funds to employ a “people’s lobbyist” to “advocate on behalf of average punters for a year”. Sounds like quite the night.

No such problems for the Qantas prize of two business class flights to either London or Los Angeles, which has attracted several bids and thus far stands at $11,050.

The ball, delayed because of the May election, will be staged in the Great Hall of Parliament House on Wednesday and is once again a sellout.

Wine time

Now that rapist former MP Gareth Ward has finally vacated his old NSW state seat of Kiama – after a brazen and unedifying court battle he embarked on after being convicted – voters on the South Coast have an opportunity to elect a new member of NSW parliament absent of any baggage and scandal.

For the Liberals – whom Ward represented before being banished to the crossbench when first charged – it’s a chance to win back a seat and test the strength of Mark Speakman’s anaemic leadership. A loss would only heighten the nervous chatter that has trailed the former barrister and attorney-general since day one.

This weekend, the party kicked off candidate Serena Copley’s campaign at Coolangatta Estate Winery, a classic Shoalhaven wedding venue outside Berry, boasting an $88 local seafood plate, with deputy leader Natalie Ward in attendance.

Already, that triggered grumbling about the bad optics of holding the event at a winery. Out of touch you see, especially after Speakman recently held a community cabinet event in an uber exclusive northern beaches golf club, as CBD reported.

In fact, pollies are probably advised to give wineries a wide berth after some recent cursed moments. During the federal election campaign, Dutton held a widely mocked doorstop to announce funding for airport rail in Melbourne at a winery that was … nowhere near the airport. Liberals, meanwhile, point to former NSW Labor transport minister Jo Haylen’s ill-fated Australia Day long lunch at a winery, to which she was escorted by a ministerial chauffeur.

The message to politicians is clear – stick to bowlos, or maybe an RSL club-cum-pokie den, the type of venue where nobody can question your battler bona fides.

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