Off The Record: Trolls force Environment Minister David Speirs off Facebook, two influential people share digs
In this week’s Off the Record, trolls force Environment Minister David Speirs to ditch Facebook, Adelaide University disavows a connection with a self-proclaimed best-selling author and two of SA’s most influential people sharing office digs.
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In this week’s Off the Record, trolls force Environment Minister David Speirs to ditch Facebook, Adelaide University disavows a connection with a self-proclaimed best-selling author and two of SA’s most influential people sharing office digs.
Speirs turns abuse off
Another sign of the madness of social media this week. Environment Minister David Speirs has closed his Facebook page after it was bombarded by vile and offensive messages.
The attacks on Speirs started after Greens MP Tammy Franks revealed the state’s environment department had approved a cull of wombats near Point Pearce on the Yorke Peninsula.
The approval to kill 200 wombats was granted to a farmer who leases land from the Aboriginal Lands Trust.
The animals were said to be damaging the farmer’s equipment.
The story, naturally, started a bit of a storm but it is understood there were dozens of obscene comments posted on the environment minister’s Facebook page, including some “terrible stuff’’ which went well beyond a reasonable disagreement on the decision to cull the wombats
It is believed it included attacks on his heritage and telling him to go back where he came from. Speirs was born in Scotland. Speirs is overseas at the moment.
He attended his brother’s wedding in the US and had work-related engagements in London and Istanbul and will make a decision on the future of his Facebook page when he returns next week.
The 35-year-old has been an active participant on social media.
His website is pretty ritzy by MP standards and he is a frequent poster on Instagram, although he doesn’t have a Twitter account.
But his Facebook page has been a popular forum for the MP to push his messages to the public and he sees it as a key communications tool.
The attacks of Speirs came in the same week that Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper said it was suspending comments on AFLW stories because of “constant trolling, harassment and disgraceful commentary’’.
Happily, the wombats have had a stay of execution.
Instead of being shot, the animals will now be housed in a reserve on the Point Pearce farm. Now the fury has moved on perhaps Speirs will be able to restart his Facebook page again.
University disavows Livolsi connection
SELF-proclaimed best-selling author and definitely not a former captain of the Junior Wallabies Rugby team, Kristian Livolsi, seems to have been a bit overzealous with the marketing of his new book.
Endorsements are great, except when the institution associated with said endorsement backs away from it at lightspeed.
On the Amazon page for Livolsi’s tome, An Introduction to a Business Growth Mindset: For start-ups and businesses looking to scale, there is a generous quote from Renee Hakendorf from the University of Adelaide – his former employer before The Advertiser exposed his false claim to be the Junior Wallabies captain – after which Livolsi gave up his roles in the business school.
The uni is none too impressed.
“The University of Adelaide does not endorse Kristian Livolsi’s book. The University of Adelaide does not endorse Innovation in the City.
“Mr Livolsi was asked to remove an endorsement attributed to Renee Hakendorf about his book … from Amazon. He was asked to remove any reference to the University of Adelaide from all websites and other contexts related to his book.”
Not really mincing words there. Livolsi was contacted for comment but did not reply.
And while we’re not sure publishing has any hard and fast rules, but surely, “spell your own name and the name of your book correctly” might be one of them.
Livolsi spelled both, and the word “business”, wrong in invitations to his $35 a head book launch later this month.
Power base
TWO of the state’s most influential people have shacked up together in Adelaide’s tallest building, Westpac House.
Former defence minister Christopher Pyne’s eponymous corporate strategic advice firm is sharing digs with Adelaide Football Club chairman Rob Chapman.
Both Pyne and Chapman featured in The Advertiser’s list of South Australia’s 50 Most Influential People, published last month. Chapman was number 22 and Pyne was 32.
Pyne and his firm’s MD Adam Howard have only recently moved into the King William St building.
It was something of a homecoming for Chapman, though, whose eponymous strategic and transaction advice firm was formed last year. He is a former chief of Westpac-owned St George Bank and BankSA.
Park power
FORMER federal Liberal Cabinet minister Amanda Vanstone, who quit the Port Adelaide Football Club board in January, was among signatories to a letter opposing Adelaide Crows’ plans for a North Adelaide HQ that was handed out before a members’ meeting this week.
Vanstone, who signed the letter after quitting the Power’s board, said:
“It’s not a Port v Crows thing, it is an Adelaide parklands thing, I think both clubs are vital to South Australia but I think the parklands come first.”
Vanstone said she wanted the council to upgrade the ageing centre itself, saying swimming centres around the world made money, and the Crows did not need to be on the parklands or need Federal and State Government money for a new home. “They should go … somewhere else,” she said.
– SIMEON THOMAS-WILSON
Date shows world is ready for Kombat
LAST week’s piece on the big-budget film Mortal Kombat, which is being filmed in South Australia caught the attention of Cathy Gallagher, a publicist for the SA Film Corp which is an investor in the movie.
While, Gallagher is not disputing that the January 15 release day of Mortal Kombat happens to be in the middle of what the Americans refer to as ‘dump month’, she wanted to offer a little more context for the cinematically illiterate.
Indeed, she said, that January was “an excellent month for these kind of titles’’.
This is because, studios tend to release all the films they think might be in contention for the Oscars the previous November and December.
“This year Bad Boys For Life starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence was released on the Martin Luther King weekend and is performing strongly, with anticipated gross US Box Office in excess of $150M,’’ she said.
According to Premier Steven Marshall, the film will pump $70 million into the SA economy, and has given talented stunt performers Chan Griffin and Anthony Rinna a chance to work on home soil.
