By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
And so, the annual budget week charade continued on Wednesday, when Treasurer Jim Chalmers gave his customary lunchtime National Press Club address in the Great Hall of Parliament House.
It was an event that continued a trend of the week – that top business leaders who once flocked to Canberra for budget week are staying home.
Westpac CEO Anthony Miller with Prime Minister Anthony AlbaneseCredit: Alex Ellinghausen
That wasn’t the case for Westpac. The bank paid $3 million to replace NAB as the Press Club’s principal sponsor in 2015, and gets more than its money’s worth in terms of access. New-ish chief executive Anthony Miller got the most coveted seat in the house, between Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who only barely made it to the start of Chalmers’ speech with seconds to spare. Finance Minister Katy Gallagher (who Chalmers labelled “the best colleague I ever had”) and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles were also on the front tables.
Westpac occupied prime real estate in the Great Hall, with guests on its tables including Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet boss Glyn Davis, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil and Labor national secretary and campaign mastermind Paul Erickson.
Trade Minister Don Farrell (known as “The Godfather” to both friends and foes) supped with the folks from Macquarie. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland was on the Telstra table. The MPs in attendance were all forced to rush out of Chalmers’ speech when a division bell summoned them back to the House for a vote.
Among the non-politicians, CBD spotted former ABC news director Gaven Morris, now leading the corporate affairs team at Commonwealth Bank, seated at the table bought by Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s private investment company Tattarang. And while this was largely a Labor affair, we did see independent senator David Pocock working the room before speech time.
Chalmers’ address began with a jibe about their being two new presidents since his last budget – “Trump and Connell” – a reference to Sky News’ Tom Connell, who replaced the ABC’s Laura Tingle in the Press Club’s top job last month.
The treasurer also drew chuckles with a few jabs at his Coalition opposite number, Angus Taylor, who they clearly see as an easy target after months of commentary about his performance in the portfolio.
“I’d happily debate him every week of the campaign,” Chalmers said.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles posted a meme referencing an infamous scene in The While Lotus.Credit: Instagram
Lotus position
Richard Marles’ latest social post has us asking – what on earth was he and/or his team thinking?
This is due to the deputy PM, in a fit of post-budget euphoria, posting a meme to his Instagram account featuring an infamous scene from prestige murder mystery drama The White Lotus, where the character Rick (played by Walter Goggins), visiting Thailand, goes for a drink with his old friend-turned-local resident Frank (played by Sam Rockwell), only to be shocked by his mate’s revelations.
The attack post, aimed at the Coalition, included a photo of Frank with the caption: “The Liberals explaining how they’re opposing a tax cut for every taxpayer” and then a reaction shot of a shocked Rick with the caption “Australian voters”.
The purpose, we guess, is as if to frame the federal opposition as the party of The White Lotus weirdness and Australians as the shocked everyman grappling with bizarre scenarios beyond their comprehension limit.
Just one problem.
Richard Marles at the National Press Club on Wednesday with Jenny Wilkinson, secretary of the Finance Department.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The actual scene in the drama is so sexually graphic that inclusion of it invites accusations that Marles and/or his team are displaying terrible judgment.
What follows (and we are summarising here) is a graphic recounting by Frank of a Heart of Darkness-style voyage through a post-colonial sexual economy in an age of unlimited desire encompassing explicit references to sex addiction, sex workers, “Asian girls” and drug use.
Suddenly, we are a long way from Labor’s three-day childcare guarantee and boosting Help to Buy.
The social media snafu comes on top of the controversy this week over Labor repurposing a racist meme to promote Medicare, and a Labor attack ad a few months ago that used a five-year-old newspaper article about Peter Dutton and his wife, Kirrily Dutton, which had the headline: “He is not a monster”. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ordered that it be taken down.
We asked Marles’ people for a response and received a no comment.
One consolation: The White Lotus scene has been widely acclaimed as one of the best TV moments of the year.
Queen of the Kingo
Much talk about the vapid content creators (we hear they don’t like being called #influencers) who received the red carpet treatment from the Albanese government on budget day.
But on budget night at the Kingston Hotel, the knockabout watering hole beloved by gallery hacks and staffers of all stripes, the celebrity drawcard was ... Pauline Hanson.
The One Nation leader, whose reactionary views on immigration are now accepted as a feature, not a bug, of the Australian political landscape, was constantly accosted for selfies throughout the evening at the Kingo. Perhaps this is the vibe shift they keep talking about.
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