Spat over Queen’s quiz

THE banally bemusing attempt to combine the Queen’s portrait, the Constitution and a politician’s pop quiz has taken an extraordinary turn.

Liberal Corangamite MP Sarah Henderson yesterday launched a blistering attack on Labor MP Richard Marles over his planned lighthearted event in Geelong’s CBD.

After being inundated with requests for a portrait of the Queen, the Corio MP said he would set up a stall outside his office today for people who wanted the taxpayer-funded poster.

The pop quiz, which he described as the “silliest campaign he had ever seen”, would ask people five questions about the Constitution before they received a picture of the 92year-old monarch.

“If people really want a portrait of the Queen from my office they can have one, but they are going to have to work for it,” the quiz master said this week.

While the initiative gained jovial national media coverage, Ms Henderson yesterday labelled it an “arrogant and patronising plan”.

She slammed the quiz master — who a day earlier was among those to condemn Senator Fraser Anning’s racist “final solution” speech — for failing to provide an A3 print upon request.

“Anyone wanting a portrait must attend the stall where they will be subjected to the humiliation and embarrassment of being required to correctly answer questions about the Constitution,” Ms Henderson told Parliament.

“If they fail this quiz, they will be denied a portrait and offered, as some sort of consolation prize, a copy of the Constitution. “What a pompous, demeaning, patronising and arrogant display of selfentitlement from someone who was lucky enough to graduate with a law degree from Melbourne University.”

Mr Marles yesterday confirmed that the offbeat event would not deny anyone an image of Queen Elizabeth II if they wanted one.

The questions had even been released in advance through the ABC and supplied to the Geelong Advertiser.

“If people come along they will be able to get a portrait of the Queen or a Constitution, and if the Member for Corangamite comes we’ll even give her a sense of humour.”