Malcolm Turnbull was gracious enough to invite Rocky Dabscheck into his Harbour-side mansion once again, this time to celebrate his 31st birthday. This was his speech.
THANK YOU for being here to help Lucy and myself enjoy my special day. My golly gosh, how time flies. It seems like only a few weeks ago we were here celebrating my 30th.
I remember telling you I welcomed my 30th with quite a dollop of trepidation. I can inform you my disquiet was not misplaced. Since then I have narrowly escaped several near death experiences, but more of that in a moment.
I must thank my very good friend, Mike Sukkar, for his suggested gift, offering to delouse my home of any termites eating away at its foundations. Thank you Mike, but there really is no need. No termites. No white ants. No cockroaches here. Plenty of marble, and not much wood here.
Mike, if you really want to give a gift we can use, Lucy found great value in Sir John Monash’s book Cooking with Ginger, Tony, Eric, Kevin, Barnaby and Craig’s very thoughtful gift from last year. Lucy suggested that where you can be a great help, is with our backyard. You probably noticed Mike, what a mess our woodpile is. I’ve heard you are quite adroit at stacking. We really can do with some help in stacking our wood into workable order. If you can find the time to have a look at it before the cold winter months are upon us, it will be of enormous help.
Now, to my near death experiences. As you know, I love sport. The Sydney Eagles, Geelong Dockers, Adelaide Hawks in the AFL. Melbourne Roar, Sydney Mariners in the A League, Sydney Broncos, Canberra Knights in the NRL — just a few of the teams I take a keen interest in.
Speaking of the Canberra Knights, lovely to see you again Tony and thank you for this year’s gift: ‘What’s good for the Goose is good for the Gander’. A tale of political intrigue and betrayal. Bless my bones Tony, I see you actually wrote it yourself.
Tony buys Malcolm a cake #auspol pic.twitter.com/GFaBNGhcyZ
— Mark David (@mdavidcartoons) April 8, 2018
This birthday I thought I would treat myself, so I called upon some of my wonderful connections, to acquire an access all areas pass to the recent Commonwealth Games. I love track and field, so rather than watching from the stand, I decided to watch the field events from literally on the field.
I was rather handy with a javelin in my youth. I thought I’d check out the javelin competition up close. Gosh. Was that a mistake! I thought I was standing in a safe spot, some 75 metres from the throwing line and to the left. Well, lordy me, one contestant hooked his throw and it came within five centimetres of skewering me. I decided to get out of there quick smart and made my way over to the pole vaulting area.
There I am, innocently standing right by the pit. An athlete comes charging in, plants his pole, up he goes and all of a sudden, his bleeding pole splits in two and one half of it shoots past my face at a rate of knots. Pardon my French, but I saw my life flying past me as that severed pole nearly lobbed itself in my temple. Fuck! Did I get out of there quick smart! What is it with me and poles?
I decided it would be far safer at the swimming pool. Even if I fell in, there’d be so many champion swimmers around, there’s no way I could drown.
I put myself in amongst our swimmers in the stand, cheering on our performing swimmers — and then, I couldn’t believe it! They start singing ‘The Voice’. I can’t be seen promoting a show on one commercial station over another. Imagine the wealthy donors our Party could lose if I’m seen to favour one company over another, unless, of course, it is over some union. There I was, in among them, having to pretend I didn’t know the words. Boy, was I happy to finally get home.
PM Malcolm Turnbull is copping it for not knowing the lyrics to @johnfarnham’s ‘You’re The Voice’ 😱 https://t.co/G9gXqW2rAC pic.twitter.com/0mJDRys7sR
— Music Feeds (@musicfeeds) April 11, 2018
You are probably aware I’ve had a tough trot of late and I don’t intend to gloss over the negative press I’ve recently been subjected to.
As you know, I strongly believe in doing things when there isn’t a more exciting time to do it. With the Royal Commission into our banking system, I’ve had to wait and wait for that moment to arrive. It took almost two years for that exciting time to arrive and, fortunately, a few weeks ago, it arrived. I am rather shocked with what has been exposed and, I assure you, it was nothing like that back in my days as a player in the world of finance.z
I am sure you would have seen me with our Queen and Prince William in recent days. I suggested they may consider naming the new addition to their family, Prince Malcolm, Prince Kevin, Prince Anthony, or even Prince Eric. That’s right, Eric. I didn’t forget their Germanic heritage, or the vocal support for Hitler from the Queen’s late uncle. Just quietly, I am a tad disappointed they went with Louis.
Now, please enjoy yourself. I believe we’ve provided for your pleasure a banquet fit for a king, and, the grog is free.
Rocky Dabscheck is a musician/songwriter and front person for Rocky and The Two Bob Millionaires. He is also the author of 'Stoney Broke and the Hi-Spenders'.
You can purchase Rocky's book, 'Stoney Broke and the High Spenders' from the IA store here. The CD '42/68' by Rocky and the Two Bob Millionaires is also available from the IA store here.
Buy the Rocky Dabscheck Book and CD Combo from the @independentaus store https://t.co/TZkPBMgTN8
— Dave Donovan (@davrosz) April 30, 2018
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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Please enjoy this incredible awkward video of prime minister Malcolm Turnbull not knowing the words to You're The Voice... again on @3AW693. pic.twitter.com/hhJLlsIZop
— Alice Workman (@workmanalice) April 12, 2018
