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When Angela Merkel met Scott Morrison, she held a piece of paper. Then photographers zoomed in.

 

So, very important world leaders gathered in Buenos Aires for the G20 Summit over the weekend to talk about very important things.

Like infrastructure, climate change, trade and who the heck the new Aussie Prime Minister was.

…Yeah. We’re not even joking.

Scott Morrison, the newbie at the event, became the third Australian PM to attend a G20 summit in four years – so when German Chancellor Angela Merkel blatantly read from a ScoMo cheat sheet as they sat down for a chat, we were all just like ‘yeah, fair enough’.

In fact, similar sheets should probably be delivered to every Australian household every time our leader takes power through messy and embarrassing leadership spillschanges. They would be very helpful, but to be fair there’s probably not a printer in the country that could keep up with the demand.

Merkel has been leading Germany since 2005 and has had to deal with six Australian prime ministers in that time – seven if you count Kevin Rudd twice.

Most of them (excluding Julia Gillard) have shared the same characteristics of: middle-aged, white, man, so to avoid confusion, someone plonked a picture of Morrison at the top of Merkel’s sheet so she could pick him out in the crowd.

The moments were captured in photos by Fairfax photojournalist Alex Ellinghausen and honestly, they say everything there is to say about Australian politics better than words ever could.

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This wasn’t the first time Morrison had to introduce himself to other world leaders at the summit.

Morrison and Merkel’s meeting came the day after Morrison met with US President Donald Trump who quizzed him on what happened to Malcolm Turnbull and how the heck a leadership spill can happen which is… very awkward.

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With an election to take place next year, there is every chance Merkel will need another cheat sheet and a new PM will have to (try) explain the ins and outs of Aussie politics to Trump.

Oh joy.

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