Backroom Baz: Ministers warned of dry funds amid Treasurer Tim Pallas’ budget ‘mess’

Ministers have been warned they shouldn’t even bother making bids for funding just a quarter into the FY, as sources reveal Tim Pallas is cracking down on spending months earlier than usual.

Treasurer Tim Pallas is telling ministers to hold their breath for funding love, according to well placed sources. Picture: David Crosling

Ministers, tighten your belts.

That’s the hard word being applied by Treasurer Tim Pallas according to well placed sources who say the now commonplace practice to remind ministers the cupboard is bare has started extra early this year.

Baz is told Pallas has been on the war path, telling anyone who will listen that the budget is tighter than last year, so they shouldn’t hold their breath for any funding love.

Unless perhaps, their project includes the favoured acronym, SRL.

“With just one quarter of this financial year completed, the current financial year’s numbers must be a mess, for this to be starting already,” one Spring St veteran said.

Mark Knight’s take on Tim Pallas’ dwindling budget.

Already poor Pallas has had to find billions of dollars to fund new health funding commitments, eye-watering new pay deals with nurses and paramedics, and Big Build blowouts.

Budget bids by ministers are usually prepared by December and lodged over Christmas and January. What follows is usually a conversation about what will and won’t be possible.

But when it comes to requests this year, Baz is told the message is clear: don’t even bother asking.

No need for Labor to put the gloves up

Opposition Leader John Pesutto spent three days in the witness box this week, and he’s not finished yet.

Pesutto will be back in court on Monday, defending the claim he defamed Moira Deeming in what has become the hottest Victorian political legal saga in living memory — and Baz is old enough to remember the case that involved Don Coulson, the former adviser to premiers Ted Baillieu and Denis Napthine, who once claimed his Treasury Place office was used as a parliamentary porn drop off point.

John Pesutto is at the centre of the hottest Victorian political legal saga in living memory. Picture: NewsWire

Moira Deeming (left) and her barrister Sue Chrysanthou. Picture: NewsWire

What’s become glaringly obvious over the past two weeks of the trial, which will almost certainly run into a fourth week, is that the work of government and opposition has virtually ground to a halt.

What’s more, the government has stopped even trying to hide the bad news, appearing to be so recklessly indifferent to the attacks of the hapless opposition.

On Thursday the government announced an almost $1bn blowout for Metro Tunnel, and on Friday, (Jacinta Allan’s one year anniversary in the top job), news broke that a statue of Daniel Andrews was in the works.

Mark Knight’s take on the announcement of Dan's statue.

Liberal heavyweights tell Baz they suspect the government has become emboldened because they calculate not a modicum of retort or retaliation.

“It’s like a boxer always going for the head knock punch and not having their own gloves up to guard,” one source said. “No punches are coming back because JP is too busy punching in court and the leadership team’s credibility has been spat out into the bucket.”

Senior coalition sources said while they were confident the court drama would blow over, it was largely agreed that doing too much work right now would be a waste, because it would be completely overshadowed by the case.

So far now, Baz is sitting by the fax machine waiting for the daily opposition press release to be spat out.

Melbourne’s hottest corporate power couple

In Melbourne’s corporate and business world they’ve become the hottest power couple, the dynamic duo behind the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

But the fact that VCCI chief Paul Guerra and his chief-of-staff Chanelle Pearson are rarely if ever seen apart has got people talking. No, not like that, dear reader.

VCCI chief Paul Guerra and his chief-of-staff Chanelle Pearson have become quite the double act. Picture: Supplied

But questions have been asked about why Guerra seems to now have his chief by his side at all times, even when it comes to hosting events. They’ve become quite the double act.

Pearson is a seriously impressive operator who has been key to VCCI’s operations for some years.

Is Guerra planning an exit and lining up a potential replacement? Picture: Supplied

Is her front facing role, as opposed to the traditional back room operator style of a chief of staff, a sign of bigger things ahead?

Is Guerra planning an exit (he’s eyed off a number of swish gigs in the major event space in recent years) and lining up a potential replacement?

For now, it appears VCCI is being run by co-CEOs. Watch this space.

Babies bridge the political divide

Politics can be a nasty, unpleasant business.

Partisanship reins supreme, and stretching the arm of friendship across the political divide is rarely done. When it is, it is done quietly.

Whispers that have reached Baz this week have proven that to be the case, with word that both Jacinta Allan and her deputy Ben Carroll have been sending flowers to the new mums on Spring St, colleague Martha Haylett, and opponent and Liberal up and comer, Jess Wilson.

Wilson gave birth barely a month ago and shocked Spring St types by getting back to work with this week with a surprise press conference.

An odd way to spend vacay

Anders Axelson is well known in Liberal Party circles, and most anyone who knows him will have a pretty strong opinion of him.

Federal Court judge David O’Callaghan, who is presiding over the Pesutto v Deeming stoush, also made his views known about him this week, after Axelson defied repeated warnings about posting images of the court case online.

Under Federal Court rules, the recording, editing or distribution of any footage of Federal Court hearings transmitted online is not permitted and can land you in contempt of court.

But Baz wonders, has Axelson done anything wrong, given he was posting from sunny Bologna and Sicily in what appears to be a very lovely European vacation? Does the Federal Court’s jurisdiction extend to Italy?

Baz reckons a more pertinent question might be why Anderson hasn’t got anything better to do while away than watch a Federal Court live stream. Negroni, anyone?

GUESS WHO

Who is the artist commissioned to sculpt the statue of Daniel Andrews? And will they secure a lifetime of work to repair anticipated vandal attacks?

OVERHEARD

“Politics is a rough game.” John Pesutto’s barrister Dr Matt Collins being both succinct, and accurate.

Originally published as Backroom Baz: Ministers warned of dry funds amid Treasurer Tim Pallas’ budget ‘mess’