Hmmm. Ratings as a riposte to a participant pointing to the poor quality of a flagship election broadcast, as if popularity is the arbiter for the ABC nowadays. We think ABC chair Kim Williams would not approve.

Allan’s speech surprise

Late on election night, Labor was ready to spring one more surprise – a rare Saturday-night-in-Melbourne appearance by Premier Jacinta Allan.

Allan is prone to spending Fridays and the weekend in her Bendigo electorate, but Labor’s landslide victory for the ages drew her to the car park behind Trades Hall in Carlton at 10.30pm on Saturday as unionists and Labor campaign volunteers commenced an epic party.

Luke Hilakari, Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary, revved up the crowd with a “UNION … POWER” war cry and some pointed jokes aimed at vanquished union hate figures Peter Dutton and Michael Sukkar.

ACTU president Michele O’Neil couldn’t stop smiling, and secretary Sally McManus clutched a can of Mountain Goat Beer while rocking a black “Don’t Risk Dutton” T-shirt. Later, CBD also spotted campaign wunderkind Jett Fogarty, Labor senior assistant state secretary and deputy campaign director.

Hilakari bellowed at the crowd from a temporary stage in the car park: “We have people power, not nuclear power, comrades.

“We have definitely won Dickson,” he said, referring to Dutton’s seat. “Turns out Australians like their potatoes pretty smashed. To be fair, he is not a monster. He’s also not a member of parliament, comrades!”

He noted there were almost no Liberal MPs left standing in metropolitan Melbourne. “Looks like we are going to win Deakin, because Michael’s going to sooka all day long about that!”

All the while hire cars from all four corners of Melbourne paused on Lygon Street outside, doors opening to dispense youthful red-shirted campaign volunteers. Hilakari then introduced his surprise guest, Jacinta Allan.

“We saw that Australians and Victorians had a choice, and they said no to cuts, but they said yes to Medicare,” said Allan, dressed in a fiery red jacket.

“They said no to nuclear and yes to cheaper renewable being built right across the country. They said no to those blockers. They said yes to the builders. They said yes to the Suburban Rail Loop. They said yes to Airport Rail.”

But to be honest, the volume of cheering at this surprise statement was several decibels lower than when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese proudly stated he had defended Medicare.

“These results are not despite what we’ve done here in Victoria, because we have done all we have,” the premier said.

McManus was so beside herself she searched for the right words to describe the fate of Melbourne’s Liberal MPs.

“They’re all gone. We ….. shredded them. And we are looking at f---ing 90 seats,” she said.

McManus had the highest praise reserved for Emma Kingdon, ACTU campaigns director and, like McManus, a Star Wars geek, inviting Kingdon up on stage as Emma “Skywalker” Kingdon.

As Sunday is May 4, otherwise known as Star Wars Day, McManus couldn’t have been happier.

Price is not right

Oh dear. Coalition Northern Territory senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was called on by the ABC to reflect on Saturday night’s dire result. She instead took a spray at the media, including this very column.

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During the campaign, CBD and others revealed Price’s happy “from my family to yours” Christmas photo of her and her songwriter husband, Colin Lillie, decked out in special festive Make America Great Again headwear.

Asked by host Sarah Ferguson whether her embrace of US President Donald Trump, and her photos with the infamous cap, helped seal Peter Dutton’s fate, Price hit out at the “mudslinging” media.

“There is a whole lot of mud you just slung right there, can I just say, in terms of wanting this country to be great. Donald Trump doesn’t own those four words,” she said.

“Because the media can go through your personal Facebook photos, and find a picture that was taken, in jest, at Christmastime, and then smear you with it, that is the problem. It’s the smearing that goes on, certainly within the media, just as you are trying to talk about this seriously. I’m deadly serious about this issue.”

Mud? Come, come. We at CBD are nothing if not great ironists and prefer to take our cues from that journalistic enterprise Price no doubt greatly admires, America’s Fox News, whose motto reads: “We report – you decide”.

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