By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
Those tuning in to Channel Seven this week can’t avoid coming into contact with Seven’s big shiny AFL advertisement spruiking its all-new commentary line-up. But a major star signing for the network is missing in action.
That person is Age columnist, 3AW commentator and former Nine panellist Caroline Wilson, who hit the headlines last year by jumping from Nine, owner of The Age, to Seven, an event that coincided with the Brownlow medal count, where she was the talk of the town. But since then, nada.
Football journalist Caroline Wilson will join Seven’s AFL coverage this year.Credit: James Brickwood
Wilson, who will continue to be a star attraction of The Age’s footy coverage, is not part of the advertisement, not part of any Seven media release and not part of the pre-announced line-up at Seven’s AFL launch in Melbourne next Wednesday. At the launch, Seven’s director of sport, Chris Jones, will fete new signings including Kane Cornes and Nick Riewoldt as the network revels in its new seven-year broadcast deal which allows it to screen games on Seven and 7Plus.
It looks like our prediction last year of “too much footy is barely enough” for Seven will come true: football programs are scheduled seven days a week. Programs will include Agenda Setters, Unfiltered, The Front Bar, Extra Time, Sunday Footy Feast, The Wash Up and Kane’s Call. How do you like them apples?
This week Seven was keeping mum about Wilson, a spokeswoman saying only, “Caroline Wilson has not been confirmed by Seven” for the launch.
Wilson’s Nine contract was understood to have been up at the end of last year, but there was a restraint period, which no one was prepared to clarify. The footy season kicks off on March 6. That’s cutting it fine.
Unfinished business
It’s full steam ahead for Michelle Ananda-Rajah, the Labor MP for the federal seat of Higgins, which regular readers will recall is being abolished at the next election.
The outgoing MP is charging ahead campaigning for a Senate seat – on your dime. How else to describe a glossy pamphlet landing in the ornate letterboxes of the Melbourne electorate?
The seat was held by the Liberal Party for decades until Ananda-Rajah wrested it off the Libs at the 2022 election only for the Australian Electoral Commission to wipe it off the electoral map in the latest redistribution.
Michelle Ananda-Rajah’s Higgins electorate update.
We had thought Ananda-Rajah was taking a victory lap with her February 2025 mailout. It has subsections devoted to listing Labor achievements on the cost of living, Homes for Australia, supporting students and Labor for Women, and there is a QR code for those who wish to peruse the MP’s farewell speech. But wait, there’s more.
“Serving Higgins has been an honour. But I can see there is more to do,” the outgoing MP tells her soon-to-be-former constituents.
“That’s why I will be running for the Australian Senate. I will bring reason and pragmatism, so that a second-term Labor government can pass changes that matter.”
All paid for by you, readers. But that’s OK, apparently.
“The February newsletter has been produced in the conduct of Dr Ananda-Rajah’s parliamentary business and was therefore claimed as a printing and communications work expense,” the MP’s spokesman told us in a lengthy explanation.
“Prior to claiming this expense, Dr Ananda-Rajah sought pre-approval from the Ministerial and Parliamentary Services PBR Frameworks Branch that her newsletter would be compliant with her Overarching Obligations imposed by the Parliamentary Business Resources Act 2017 (PBR Act); and the specific restrictions imposed by the Parliamentary Business Resources Regulations 2017 (PBR Regs). This was confirmed before the newsletter went to print.”
OK, we get it. The Department of Finance confirmed that Ananda-Rajah was continuing to represent the electorate and thus the printing was allowable. But when we asked, it refused to say how much it cost.
Elsewhere in electoral news
Meanwhile, in Higgins-adjacent news, remember those job-share political candidates Bronwen Bock and Lucy Bradlow?
Given the absurd amount of media coverage their thought bubble idea to share an electorate managed to jag, who could not?
Having failed to persuade the AEC not to abolish Higgins, and having failed to persuade the AEC to allow them to stand for the Senate, the duo are now taking the AEC to the Federal Court.
Two tees in a pod: Joint political hopefuls Lucy Bradlow (left) and Bronwen Bock.Credit: Bradlow and Bock
They have managed to recruit a “best-in-class pro bono legal team” for their political phone-a-friend effort: Professor Kim Rubenstein, the ACT Women’s Legal Service, Emrys Nekvapil, SC, and Dr Julian Murphy. And the pair are asking for donations for their “history-making effort”. Of course.
Merch madness
The Albanese government we encounter sputtering towards the next election seems tired and in desperate need of a facelift.
It looks like someone in Labor’s head office has heard the call and cooked up a cunning plan to turn the tide: merch. Fresh merch. A whole new line of swag bearing the slogan “ALBO 2025” just dropped in the official ALP online shop.
Albo 2025 merch will be flying off the shelves, Labor is optimistically predicting.
It’s giving Kevin 07 vibes – a massive success, but crucially, one that occurred entirely prior to Labor’s ascension into office and before anyone realised just how dysfunctional the whole mob was going to be.
The range includes T-shirts, badges, bandanas and a tote bag (how very teal). And a box of what looks like mints, which seems very Arthur Calwell to us.
As for the early reviews, well we heard of one former senior Labor right figure saying he’d “rather be seen wearing a keffiyeh”. Make of that what you will.
Chauffeur Watch
Just when we thought NSW Labor wasn’t what it used to be, former transport minister Jo Haylen was revealed to have used a ministerial chauffeur to repeatedly ferry her to and from her Caves Beach holiday home near Newcastle.
Haylen, who had a gaffe-ridden few years in NSW Premier Chris Minns’ ministry, is gone. However, Housing Minister Rose Jackson, whose boozy birthday lunch at a Hunter Valley winery kicked off the chauffeur scandal but who played no part in organising the driver, has survived.
During question time in the NSW Legislative Council on Thursday, shadow education minister Sarah Mitchell quizzed Jackson on her use of a driver to attend a Taylor Swift concert, clearly sniffing a viral moment.
Jackson saw her coming. She said she had attended the concert in an official capacity in the Venues NSW box, and was “happy to report” that she used the ministerial car.
“In fact, I gave a lift to former premier Dominic Perrottet and his three kids.”
Bipartisanship is a beautiful thing.
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