The Sauce: Premier’s staffer raises eyebrows after posting photo with shamed MP
A picture can be powerful in politics: after being dubbed a sleaze for posting pictures with young women on World Bikini Day, a more recent snap of Queensland MP Jason Costigan with Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s director of strategy Brad Burden is also raising eyebrows.
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A picture can be powerful in politics: just ask shamed Queensland MP Jason Costigan.
Dubbed a sleaze for posing in — and posting — pictures with young women on World Bikini Day, he was later accused of sexually harassing an 18-year-old, expelled from the Liberal National Party, and recently his local council has been trying to get him banned from school events.
He’s seen (below) in happier times (a few months after his seaside bikini hijinks, but before the other accusations, which he denies) with his old mate and former colleague Brad Burden, Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s director of strategy.
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That seaside snap is also raising eyebrows — not for their apparel, but because it was taken days after Burden oversaw a by-election bloodbath in Wagga.
While most Liberals were licking their wounds, Burden packed his swimmers for the Sunshine State.
The Sauce understands it helped fuel the simmering tensions within the Premier’s office that are threatening to boil over.
HUNGRY MUNCH
It’s the legume largesse that has left one Liberal councillor with a “disgusting” taste in her mouth.
The Greens/Labor-dominated Inner West Council serves so much food at council meetings, councillors are being sent home with doggy bags.
But don’t you dare think those containers are the Chinese restaurant variety, with councillors given “reusable containers … in line with council’s Single Use Plastic and Zero Waste policies”.
Liberal councillor Julie Passas described the wastage as “sinful”, adding “the catering last Tuesday could have fed 50, but we had only 15 councillors and seven staff to feed”.
An IWC spokeswoman told Sauce correspondent Ben Pike that their efforts to give the nosh to those less fortunate were thwarted because local charities would not accept cooked food.
Asked why they don’t serve less food, she said: “Council staff provide food on the best estimate of attendance by councillors and staff during this six-hour duration. What time that meal is consumed is up to the individual and could depend on several circumstances, such as what time they arrive,” she said.
“To minimise the cost of catering, council has a panel of providers, and where possible uses local restaurants and takeaway food establishments.”
Bon appetit.
A STAR IS BORN
Campbelltown MP Greg Warren has been channelling broadcasting great, and namesake, Ray Warren this week.
Taking a cue from Labor’s social media-savvy head office, “Rabbits” Warren got his hands on a microphone and camera and has been quizzing his leader Michael Daley in a series of short videos.
Aside from new policy, the Member from Campbelltown has turned the conversation to the approaching rugby league season, and passing wildlife, with a hint of roguish charm.
THE RINGMASTER
Veteran Affairs Minister and good Samaritan Darren Chester thought he was doing the right thing in asking his constituents to help him find the owners of a missing wedding band over summer.
Chester, a keen athlete, spotted the gold band in the car park at Bullock Island after a quick dip.
“Assuming someone hasn’t thrown it at their partner in an argument … I might be able to restore marital bliss by finding the owner,” Chester wrote on his Facebook page in an attempt to return the gold band.
After five couples came forward claiming to have lost rings in surf, sea and sand over the past decade, Chester took the ring to the local police station.
BURSTON BUST-UP
We all have bad weeks at work, but the employee charged with the seating arrangements at the Australian Minerals Industry Parliamentary Dinner had a shocker.
Onlookers at the swanky affair were bemused as to why Pauline Hanson’s chief of staff James Ashby was seated at the same table as Brian Burston, who defected from the party last year.
As The Sauce reported in September, the pair nearly came to blows on the dance floor of the Midwinter Ball last year, when words were exchanged.
It’s little wonder a scuffle broke out Wednesday night, given Burston and Ashby were seated on the same table for mining’s night of nights.
SPIN SESSION
While most candidates are relying on raffles, dinners and auctions to raise campaign funds, Monaro Labor candidate Bryce Wilson chose to liven things up by calling on his old rocker mates to bring in the dough — among them, Michael Daley’s chief troubleshooter Eamonn Fitzpatrick.
Dubbed “agent of infection” by his political opponents, Fitzpatrick has been Labor’s gun-for-hire for the past decade. The Hawker Britton director has worked in the offices of Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Anna Bligh, Morris Iemma and Annastacia Palaszczuk, to name a few.
Responding to Wilson’s call, Fitzpatrick immediately reassembled his old bar band Spin to put on a fundraising gig at The Australian Heritage Hotel at The Rocks.
Joining Fitzpatrick on bass was guitarist Peter Zangari, who is the brother of Labor frontbencher Guy Zangari, and Scott Keenan, who sang and also played guitar.
The trio, who all worked in the officer of former NSW Treasurer Michael Costa, belted out grunge and punk classics such as Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes and All The Small Things by Blink-182.
Fitzpatrick was dubbed “agent of infection” by the Queensland Liberal National Party after he was brought in to help Bligh in the doomed 2012 election campaign.
“They thought I was part of the NSW disease,” he said.
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