Police Minister unloads on Hillsong leader missing in action

August 8, 2021 â€" 5.00am

Police Minister David Elliott has been front and centre lately on protests, lockdown and Hillsong leader Brian Houston. We had a chat on Friday afternoon.

Fitz: Minister, thanks for your time, but if we can bring it back to ME for a moment, I was as pleased as I was surprised to see the strength of your remarks about Brian Houston being in Mexico right now. It is not often we see conservatives of your ilk taking down big wheels of the ruling class?

Hillsong pastor Brian Houston has been charged by NSW Police. Credit:Getty

Elliott: His church is in my electorate. I had one of his parishioners in my office who had lost his 12-year-old niece to suicide due to strains of lockdown, and his pastor, Brian Houston, was nowhere to be seen. He was in Mexico! And at that time, I didn’t know that the local constabulary were putting a brief together to charge him with allegedly concealing child abuse. Beyond that, last year, he had to go overseas and he wanted preferential treatment for quarantine, to go into a five-star suite. We arranged it â€" despite the fact that the Pope, President Biden and Foreign Minister Marise Payne can do most of their foreign work remotely, and he is just a suburban preacher â€" and then he criticised our COVID policy! He’s an ungrateful twat!

Fitz: My next surprise was seeing the clip of you making an aggressive appearance with Alan Jones where you took him on. Why go on Jones when, in the first place his views on COVID make him execrable, and in the second place there is no more vicious critic of your Premier right now than him?

Elliott: I made a commitment early in the year to go on his show every second Wednesday, and I kept to the commitment. I don’t agree with just about anything Jones says on COVID, and it is important to go on to counter it.

NSW Police Minister David Elliott fronting media on Saturday. Credit:Nine

Fitz: Seeing as you’re speaking frankly, with no weasel words, let me ask you to be honest. On a day when we are six weeks into lockdown with nudging 300 new infections, can we agree that NSW is no longer the gold standard, if they ever were?

Elliott: No shit, Sherlock. Of course we are not the gold standard at the moment. But we can manage our way out of this.

Fitz: You are in the cockpit of the government. What is your best estimate as to when we can all pick the lock, and get out of lockdown?

Elliott: On current projections, with the line of vaccination rates going up, and if transmission rates come down over the next fortnight it looks like they’ll meet at a satisfactory level before Grand Final Day in October. There will be hopefully an easing of some restrictions before then, though.

Fitz: Are you nudging towards going to federal politics, as I saw hinted in a political gossip column just last week?

Elliott: Mate, if I got smashed for going on holidays during the bushfires, how do you think I’d go walking away to federal politics? No, I have no interest.

Fitz: In that case, you must have ambitions to one day be premier.

Elliott: No, I have seen what it takes in Mike Baird and Gladys. You need a razor-sharp mind. Gladys knows more about some of the ministerial portfolios than some of the ministers themselves. That is not me. I have the job I want, right now.

Fitz: Meantime, great that your fine wife is a republican, but how long can you let the side down? When Barbados is about to be a republic, do you SERIOUSLY think Oz is incapable of running our own show? Minister? It is downright embarrassing! #FFS!

Elliott: Peter, you are never going to sway me on this. I am a working-class protestant, and I love my institutions!

Fitz: Well, as your wife is one of our members of the ARM, as chair I am going to email her and ask her to withdraw hugs until you come good, and see how you like that.

Elliott: (Laughs.) “Do your worst!”

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ON THE HOUSE

A point of order, Mr Speaker, Tony Smith. (And love your work, by the way. You are the best Speaker in yonks.) A point of order, I say! The mission statement of Hansard is to provide an “accurate, substantially verbatim account of the proceedings of Parliament. Well, I wish to highlight what the Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said in an extremely red-faced manner, badly slurring his words, on Wednesday.

“Now, I’ve, I’ve, I, I like going to a movies and, I can’t, I can’t but, wergh, I can’t, er, I can’t but always remember, Howard Hughes, Howard Hughes the aviator but, ya Howard Hughes the aviator, but the Labor Party have got, got Albo the advocator ergh, the great advocator, the great ideas man, the great ideas man straight from the pool room ... ohurrrgh ... ”

Speaker: “The Deputy Prime Minister will resume his seat.”

And this is what Hansard recorded: “I like going to the movies. I always remember Howard Hughes, The Aviator, but the Labor Party have got ‘Albo the advocator’ â€" the great advocator, the ideas man, straight from the pool room . . . ”

The SPEAKER: ”The Deputy Prime Minister will resume his seat . . .”

Mr Speaker, is this remotely close to being accurate or verbatim? In the meantime, I have texted the Deputy PM to ask the obvious, but he has not replied. He might be at lunch.

TWEET OF THE WEEK

“Houston, you have a problem.” - @MikeCarlton01

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“In light of my own experience, it’s hard to process how an accused rapist â€" albeit one who will never face prosecution â€" could be offered one of the highest positions of power in the country by none other than our nation’s leader himself. Christian Porter has been accused of raping a woman in 1988. Last year, his alleged victim died by suicide. He has denied the accusation.” - Australian of the Year Grace Tame, writing in the Herald on the appointment of Christian Porter as Leader of the House.

“How to sign off? Well, not ‘the way it was’, as has been suggested, but for the last time, ‘the way it is’. This is Brian Henderson, a sad Brian Henderson, saying not goodnight this time, but goodbye.” - Brian Henderson, signing off from his iconic role, reading the Nine news from 1957 to 2002. He died on Thursday, at 89.

The way it was ... Brian Henderson.Credit:Malcolm Fairclough

“Pacific Islanders are broadly more conservative in their religious beliefs, and they are listening to conspiracy theories that link anti-COVID-19-initiatives to biblical references to end times in which government seeks to increase control over people. Yet there is no biblical argument against the COVID-19 vaccine or the government-imposed lockdowns.” - The Reverend Alimoni Taumoepeau, of the Uniting Church’s Mission and Education Unit, one of the church leaders concerned that migrant communities in Sydney’s west are being influenced by COVID-19 vaccination conspiracy theories.

“The Leader of the Opposition’s proposal is a vote of no confidence and an insult to Australians, suggesting they won’t get vaccinated unless you dole out the cash. That is an insult. That is an insult to every Australian. Those 80 per cent of older Australians who have turned up and rolled up their sleeves, they didn’t need the cash. They just needed to know that it was good for them.” - Scott Morrison, reacting to Anthony Albanese’s proposal of cash incentives, despite the PM saying he is “open” to using lotteries or other incentives to lift the vaccination rate to 70 per cent.

“Thank you Mum and Dad.” - Small paper sign that Greek long jumper Emmanouíl Karalís pulled out of his shirt to show when he saw that the cameras were on him at the Olympics.

“I missed the kick at the start. I worked too hard, I put my head up, got a bit desperate, you know, and the race was over.” - Rohan Browning on how he didn’t get through his semi-final in the men’s 100m race.

“Sometimes it’s not a good idea to have a Christmas in July right in the middle of a pandemic.” - Minister of Health Brad Hazzard after a Christmas party was found to be the centre of a COVID-19 outbreak in a Sydney nursing home. #FFS.

“This is a great victory for nature, the climate and community campaigning over many years to protect the Garden of Stone from further damage by coal mining. The mine has already caused extensive ecological damage by draining and killing several wetlands of national significance. It is a relief that this threat to these unique ecosystems will now be [stopped].” - Chris Gambian, chief executive of the NSW Nature Conservation Council, happy but not quite making sense at the news that Centennial Coal has drastically scaled back plans for a mine extension in a sensitive area of the Blue Mountains.

“He is setting a shocking example to the millions of Australians forced into lockdown and I can’t think of a more hypocritical set of values for a so-called Christian leader. My phone has gone crazy given the challenges facing the very people he claims to offer pastoral care to.” - Minister David Elliott condemns Brian Houston for leaving his church, and getting an exemption to fly to the US and Mexico during a pandemic â€" and just before he was charged by NSW police with allegedly concealing child sexual abuse.

JOKE OF THE WEEK

Bob fears his wife of 52 years, Peggy, isn’t hearing as well as she used to, but is not sure how to raise it, given her sensitivity over getting older. The family doctor gives him the good oil, though, on how to at least confirm she is going deaf. “Stand about 10 metres away, and in a normal conversational speaking tone see if she hears you. If not, go to eight metres, six metres, and so on until you get a response.” That evening, Peggy is in the kitchen cooking dinner, so Bob positions himself by the TV and in a normal tone asks, “What’s for dinner, love?” No response. So he moves to the dining room table: “Peg, what’s for dinner?” Nothing. So, he comes right to the kitchen door, and says conversationally, “Honey, what’s for dinner?” Still nothing. Saddened but determined, he moves right up behind her. “Peg, what’s for dinner?” “For God’s sake, Bob, for the FOURTH time, CHICKEN!”

Twitter: @Peter_Fitz

Peter FitzSimons is a journalist and columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald.

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