The Ferret: ABC ignores WA pollies and personalities for Perth Q&A, Greta meets mining magnate Andrew Forrest

GRETA’S GREATEST MOMENT Greta Thunberg — the Swedish climate activist who’s either the voice of a generation or the world’s most annoying teenager, depending on your perspective — has finally cracked it. Her tears over missing out on the Nobel peace prize (it went to a non-celebrity who’s saved umpteen thousands of lives in Africa, you might recall) are now long forgotten. Currently stranded somewhere in North America as she figures out how to return to Europe without spilling a single drop of aviation gas, young Greta has landed another honour. She has finally got an audience with WA’s very own Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest. Even better, she got to have her picture taken with him. And such was the significance of the occasion that it got splashed on the front page of the Ferret’s favourite German journal of record, the Berliner Morgenpost. Now the Ferret is the first to concede his translation may be a little bit unreliable — the Ferret struggles with English, let along strange foreign tongues. But trust me, I’m quite sure the story quotes Greta saying she was much more excited to meet Twiggy than she was to come face-to-face with that washed-up Tinseltown pretty boy Leonardo DiCaprio but a few weeks back. That was a fairly awkward encounter during which Leonardo fawned over Greta as if she were a Hollywood co-star and kept blabbing incessantly about her being “a leader of our time”. And it says it was a much more productive meeting than the one she had shortly afterwards with Arnold Schwarzenegger. In that case, what was meant to be an innocuous photo opportunity turned bizarre when the former Mr Universe and California governor insisted on Greta going bike-riding with him all over Santa Monica to prove his physical prowess. With Twiggy, it was all rather more dignified. All she had to do was stand next to him, look all serious and help spruik his latest initiative by holding a #noplasticwaste placard. What the article doesn’t mention, however, is whether Greta was aware that Twiggy digs up a significant portion of the Earth’s crust and dispatches it far across the seas to China. Or maybe she was. Which explains the Mona Lisa smile. IT’S Q AND WA The ABC is bringing its flagship whinge-fest to town. Q&A, or #qanda to the social media crowd that lost Labor the election, will broadcasting a special Perth episode in two weeks’ time on Monday night. Obviously as I do not have a head fit for public consumption let alone national TV, the Ferret has not been invited on. Nor have any of my more esteemed and photogenic Seven West Media colleagues been asked to appear (you would think we didn’t run the State’s daily newspaper, the State’s number one and number two news websites, 19 of the State’s regional newspapers and 12 of the State’s community newspapers). Neither has anyone from the State Government nor the opposition. Not even Basil Zempilas has been asked. So far the line-up includes Labor MP and Sky News regular Anne Aly and Attorney-General Christian Porter. I love Porter but the most charismatic thing he’s done recently is appear in The West wearing sneakers. It’s also been reported that new ABC boss Ita Buttrose has pulled out of appearing on the Perth special (she can go to western Sydney but Western Australia is a step too far!). But that has less to do with the five-hour flight and lack of daylight saving and more to do with the “confronting” panel that went to air last week. Aunty has removed the all-feminist and all-female episode from the internet and has launched an investigation into the show after its complaints hotline went into meltdown. Please. You know what else is “confronting”? One woman a week being killed in a domestic violence incident. Oh well, viewers with any sense will be watching Seven’s Flashpoint on Monday night anyway.