The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has experienced a past 12 months more tortured than a six-year-old’s violin strings.
First there was the abruptly cancelled concert by pianist Jayson Gillham after he went onto the MSO stage and accused Israel of killing journalists in Gaza. The resulting PR crisis led to the resignation of MSO managing director Sophie Galaise – and, eventually, the launching of an external review led by former Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett and a court case that remains afoot.
Olivia Newton-John performing in 2003.Credit: Peter Morris
Just prior to Gillham’s fateful appearance at Melbourne’s Iwaki Auditorium, the MSO hosted Hopelessly Devoted: A Celebration of Olivia Newton-John – a tribute show featuring stars such as David Campbell. And all for a great cause with the MSO promising a donation to the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness Centre.
Except … that donation was slow to make its way to the ONJ-CWC. Whoops! This column started hearing rumours the dosh had not turned up earlier this year. After a quiet inquiry was made to Hamer Hall the error was quickly rectified, and the donation – tens of thousands of dollars we understand – was paid in March.
CBD understands the cause of delay was a simple administrative oversight. The MSO had, um … rather a lot on.
“The MSO apologises for the time taken to honour this commitment,” said a Hamer Hall statement. While the ONJ-CWC graciously said they were “very grateful” for the “generous” donation.
Not so much Hopelessly Devoted, as just hopeless.
And what of Galaise? The orchestra’s former boss lady has a new gig, announcing that she is becoming an ambassador for the Advisory Board of the Arts, a global arts and culture consulting firm founded in London by ex-McKinsey executive Christopher Denby.
Fiona Patten makes a return
We’re hardly experts, but we reckon this is the first time voters will receive election campaign literature featuring a picture of Ned Kelly smoking two blunts.
But that how-to-vote card is part of the Legalise Cannabis Party’s plan to build on some recent state-level success and win its first federal seat.
The Legalise Cannabis Party’s 2025 Senate how-to-vote card.
The party is running for the upper house in every state, and putting up candidates in a slew of key marginals.
Its best shot is in Victoria, where former state upper house MP Fiona Patten, of the Australian Sex Party (later renamed the Australian Reason Party) is the weed-heads’ lead candidate.
Patten lost her upper house seat in 2022 after eight years on the crossbench, telling this masthead at the time that she was leaving behind “unfinished business”. That included pushing for greater reform on drug laws, an issue which is top of the Legalise Cannabis agenda, as you might imagine.
A former lobbyist for the sex industry who just beat cancer for the third time in two years, she’s well-used to beating the odds.
The party has also been given a further boost by Labor preferencing them number two on their Senate how-to-votes in the state, above the Greens.
While legal weed still feels like a pipe dream in Australia, the party has experienced a steady resurgence of late, with former Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham winning an upper house seat at the 2023 NSW state election, following a strong showing in WA two years earlier.
Rudd’s diary
Donald Trump hadn’t even claimed victory over Kamala Harris in last November’s presidential election when the calls to send ambassador Kevin Rudd back to Queensland began. But the Ruddster has hung on.
The former prime minister, whose position in Washington DC came under intense scrutiny as his past scathing attacks on the US president resurfaced, spent the night after Trump’s win dining with a Republican representative from Illinois, identity redacted, according to documents released under freedom of information.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, director of Trump’s National Economic Council Kevin Hassett, and ambassador Kevin Rudd in Washington.Credit: Michael Butcher Butcher Photography 2024
Kevin 07’s diary, which was released this week, shows a series of meetings with redacted friends on polling day, culminating in an election night reception hosted by the embassy.
Later that week, Rudd dropped in to a talk given by Australian National University professor John Blaxland to graduate students at Harvard’s Kennedy School of government.
“Ambassador Rudd is a highly effective ambassador to the United States. Representing Australia’s interests through engagements with a range of stakeholders is a core part of diplomacy,” a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson told us.
To be fair, Kevin from Queensland remains in DC, watching the world burn from a ringside seat.
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