By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
Here at CBD we are regularly accused of having hearts of concrete. But as if we pay attention to our parents!
So regular readers may be surprised that even we cracked a little when we heard this tale of a long-lost childhood memento resurfacing years later – and from across the political divide.
La Trobe MP Jason Wood (left), his Labor challenger, Jeff Springfield, and the long-lost wooden case.
Who has reached their middle years without losing something of great emotional value along the shifting pathways of life? Certainly not Jason Wood.
The federal Liberal MP for the outer Melbourne seat of La Trobe retained his seat with 52 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote despite a swing of more than 6 per cent to his Labor opponent, Jeff Springfield.
Items from Jason Wood’s childhood case include a photo of his Great Dane, Junior.
Back in 2010, Wood lost an old wooden case made when he was a high school student at Ferntree Gully Technical School.
It contained much he held dear: primary school medals; scouting photos; police memorabilia; newspaper clippings from the Ash Wednesday bushfires, when he was a teenager; a photo of Junior, his 85-kilogram Great Dane; his gold Duke of Edinburgh Award; a Christmas card from John Howard; and, most importantly, a treasured photo of his nana.
Fast forward 15 years and Wood was reunited with the case days ago. And who returned it? None other than his Labor opponent, Springfield, who rang to concede and told him the item had been handed to him by a Labor supporter.
“We caught up for a brunch. I couldn’t stop thanking him. I even gave him a hug. I am not a hugging guy, but I wanted to let him know how appreciative I was,” Wood told CBD, describing the case as having “all my highlights” that he could now share with his daughter Jasmine.
College champions George Pell
The folk at Sky News aren’t too fond of universities, suspecting them to be overrun by woke academics and young communists doing eight-year arts degrees while minoring in pro-Palestinian protests.
But the News Corp channel has a lot of love for Campion College, a small Catholic higher education institution in western Sydney, where students learn the good stuff – Western civilisation, the Great Books, philosophy – all taught without a hint of woke. The small college’s alumni are over-represented among staff at the network, whose presenters have given it a few glowing tributes on air.
Campion College’s new great hall is named after the late Cardinal George Pell.Credit: Getty Images
The college remains a haven for other conservatives too – its board of trustees includes former ACT Liberal senator Zed Seselja and former shop assistants’ union boss Joe de Bruyn, whose anti-abortion tirade at an Australian Catholic University graduation ceremony last year led to a student walkout.
More recently, Campion College came up with a tribute to a figure idolised by conservative Catholics, unveiling a new grand hall named after the late Cardinal George Pell, who spent 404 days in prison after being convicted of child sex abuse charges which were quashed on appeal by the High Court.
The new hall’s opening was attended by former Liberal prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott. Both men were passionate supporters of Pell after his initial conviction, with Howard providing a character reference to the Victorian County Court ahead of the cardinal’s sentencing. Abbott delivered a eulogy at Pell’s funeral in 2023, describing Pell as having undergone “a modern-day crucifixion”.
The pair both spoke glowingly about Pell’s “dedication to faith, justice, and public service”, the college said in its latest newsletter.
“His tenacity and his strength and his resilience would’ve broken most of us, but not him. And he was sustained in that by his resolute faith,” Howard said.
Where did Campion get the money for the new hall? According to its recent newsletter, the Pell hall and name came thanks to the largesse of a particularly generous anonymous donor. Naturally, our suspicions immediately fell on Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart – the billionaire mining magnate has a library at Campion College named in her honour after providing what the college called “a transformative donation”.
But Rinehart’s people told us she had nothing to do with the Pell hall, and the college didn’t enlighten us further. A divine mystery.
Minister derailed
While Melbourne is obviously the major events capital of the nation, up north they manage as best they can. As the NSW minister for arts, tourism and the night-time economy, John Graham gets to go to what qualifies in Emerald City as all the fun stuff – show openings, gigs, festivals, you name it.
John Graham, in NSW transport minister mode, gives an update on the commuter disruption. Credit: Oscar Colman
But on Tuesday, the minister’s planned appearance at the opening night of the Sydney Writers’ Festival was derailed – literally. An incident at Strathfield station in Sydney’s inner west brought the city’s train network grinding to a halt. Due to his other gig as transport minister, Graham was forced to race back from a community cabinet meeting in Ulladulla on the NSW South Coast to get a special briefing from bureaucrats at the Rail Operations Centre.
It meant opening-night festival guests were robbed of a few trademark zingers from the minister, who we hear was also set to deliver an impassioned address on the importance of literature in bringing deeper thinking to public debate in an era of irritating, algorithmically slopified public discourse, or something like that.
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