Seems like people are a bit tetchy about the fact I took on a few extra roles during the pandemic without telling them. They even want to censure me in Parliament for God’s sake. But the fact is, I never hid anything from anybody. Had anyone bothered to ask me whether I had secretly taken on five extra ministries and enquired about a sixth, of course I would’ve been more than happy to tell them about it. But they never did. That’s lazy journalism. And I know lazy.
All it would’ve taken is for a journo to say, “Hey ScoMo, do you happen to be currently responsible for Australia’s resources, health, finance, home affairs, energy and social services portfolios?” and naturally I would’ve said ‘yes’. Pretty simple stuff really. Journalism 101.
Yet now you’re having a whinge. It’s not my job to ask the questions. What did you expect me to do? Come to a media conference and say, “Ask me if I’m science minister”? That’s not my job. Well, the science minister job was my job, but the job of asking questions – that wasn’t my job. You know what I mean.
And now Joshy Frydenberg is all hot under the collar about the fact I took on the treasury portfolio too. Well, we lived together in Canberra for months during the pandemic, and not once did he ask me if I’d secretly taken over his job without telling him. I was right there, ready to tell him all about it, but he never asked. Instead we talked about how to make a chicken tikka marsala, which I always thought was strange.
What did Josh think I was doing? When I told him that we had a lot in common, I wasn’t talking about our shared love of Tina Arena. I was referring to the fact that we were both in charge of Australia’s fiscal policy. Pretty obvious really.
Anyway, that’s all behind us now. Josh is now a consultant for Goldman Sachs and I’m the member for Cook. And the member for eighteen other electorates, which I could’ve told you more about if you’d ever bothered to ask.
