By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
The Olympics are over, but the Olympic spirit is still strongly coursing through the veins of our elected representatives.
How else to explain the sudden cessation of hostilities across the political landscape on Wednesday, when our Olympians arrived back in Sydney aboard a Qantas jet to be met by a wave of superfan rapture from everyone from Governor General Sam Mostyn down?
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese entered into the spirit by giving a lift to Opposition Leader Peter Dutton from Canberra on the prime ministerial plane Toto One, CBD was told.
The feelgood bipartisanship didn’t last long. While at the event, Dutton used a live cross to Sky News to call for a stop to migration from Gaza. Never one to miss an opportunity, is our Dutts.
Politicians remain in thrall to the Olympic spirit.Credit: John Shakespeare
Meanwhile, shadow transport minister Senator Bridget McKenzie took a day off from her usual ferocious take-downs of the national carrier by enthusiastically embracing the event, even at one point clutching a Qantas-branded flag.
“It was wonderful to be able to welcome home our athletes who put on that incredible display of sportsmanship,” McKenzie told CBD. “To see them with their loved ones was fantastic.
“Qantas has carried our Olympians home since WWII. I think my job is to be the very best shadow transport minister I can be every single day and I don’t back away from that.
“Credit where credit is due. Qantas did a great job in facilitating the celebration for our athletes today.”
CORRS BLIMEY
Corrs Chambers Westgarth is feeling sensitive.
The corporate law firm has drawn months of critical media coverage of its bloated salaries for top partners, high-profile departures, and those pesky bureaucrats at the Workplace Gender Equality Agency revealing it had the worst gender pay gap data among big legal players.
Then last week, with all that humming along in the background, the legal fraternity was getting all worked up over a widely circulated, anonymous, and frankly rather clumsily written 1500-word screed, apparently from past and present female Corrs staff, addressed to former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick, who now works as a consultant for organisations trying to fix their cultural rot.
Among a string of allegations, the letter described Corrs as a workplace dominated by an “alpha male locker-room culture,” and singled out one specific practice as being “a misogynistic and anti-female practice” that froze out prospective female partners by giving them “third-rate work”.
Corrs did not appreciate CBD’s questions about this letter. First, the firm’s PR people demanded we provide them with a copy. They could’ve just asked one of their grads to check popular Instagram page The Aussie Corporate, where the letter was shared.
Then came a stern, intemperate email from partner Christine Covington, head of gender equality at Corrs, calling the allegations in the letter “serious and false” and expressing great displeasure at our failure to pass it onto them.
“It is incomprehensible that any journalist would proceed to make serious allegations against a large and identifiable group of people, lawyers no less, in those circumstances,” she wrote.
To be fair, Covington helpfully provided us some numbers around gender equity at the firm to debunk some of the letter’s claims about its performance on this front.
“The percentage of women in the partnership has increased from 23 per cent to 32 per cent, and the number of female equity partners has more than doubled, from 11 per cent to close to 25 per cent.”
We can see the glass ceiling crumbling before our eyes.
Covington then informed us that the firm regularly briefs feared (female) defamation barrister Sue Chrysanthou, including in a successful action against Nine, owners of this masthead. And if we proceeded to publish an article on the letter, we could expect to be hearing from the top silk.
If not for all this bluster, we might have forgotten, or ignored the anonymous missive. Certainly Broderick, no longer a statutory officer, can’t do anything about the allegations, unless engaged by the firm itself.
But Corrs’ response to us, so demonstrative of the firm’s siege mentality, just couldn’t be ignored.
OFF THE BILL
In a month’s time, the good people of NSW will be forced to turn their minds to that most invigorating of democratic duties, voting in local government elections.
And the final tickets published on Wednesday revealed a few veterans of council politics were finally moving on. Among them is Bayside Council Mayor Bill Saravinovski, left off Labor’s ticket after 40 years in local government.
Coincidentally, just weeks ago, a spokesperson for the Office of Local Government confirmed to us that the deputy secretary, local government referred a matter involving Saravinovski to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal for determination.
Because of a non-publication order, there aren’t really any further details beyond the rampantly speculative. Which we’re not in the business of doing. But we can say that Saravinovski’s decision to step aside came after discussions with powerbrokers in Sussex Street.
When contacted by CBD on Wednesday, Saravinovski told us he was stepping down to focus on his health, and had been in hospital recently. When asked whether the NCAT matter influenced his decision, the answer was a swift no.
At least there will still be a Saravinovski on the ticket, though. Bill’s son, Christopher Saravinovski, is running in his place.
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