By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
Spotted. At 12.42pm on Monday at the Paris End of Melbourne, a 12a tram’s bell was ringing up a storm.
The driver was irate at a figure clad in a pressed blue business shirt and suit trousers who was standing too close to the tracks at the intersection of Collins and Spring streets.
Tony Abbott during a previous visit to Melbourne. Credit: Getty Images
Not even the iron political will of former prime minister Tony Abbott, (now a distinguished fellow of conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs) could win in a tussle against 21 tonnes of transport infrastructure.
Thus PM 28 neatly stepped back to allow the tram through before crossing the road. And whom should he bump into, strolling up Spring Street, also fully suited despite the temperature being 36 degrees?
None other than ex-foreign minister Alexander Downer, a former cabinet colleague of Abbott’s. Downer was either overcome with the luck and happenstance of the chance encounter or, perhaps, the heat, and immediately removed his jacket.
The pair then crossed Spring Street and headed in the direction of that Australian Labor Party stronghold otherwise known as Victoria’s Parliament House.
Fighting the fight
Just when you least expect it, Nine presenter Catriona Rowntree has made a spirited late-stage intervention in the Werribee byelection. Rowntree has presented travel program Getaway on Nine, which also owns The Age, since the 1990s and lives in picturesque Little River, south-west of Melbourne.
While we like to think of our TV presenters as apolitical and more likely to have an opinion on the latest Taylor Swift album than the government’s renewables policy, Rowntree was not in the mood to pull any punches, labelling her social media post panning across beautiful Victorian countryside as “This is the land Vic Labor wants to destroy”.
She then explained to her 120,000 followers that the state Labor government wanted to cover the beautiful Mount Rothwell area in solar panels and batteries.
“Mt Rothwell is just near the fire zone. Labor wants to build a massive lithium facility!”
Unimpressed: Catriona Rowntree.
Her piece to camera was delivered with trademark professionalism.
“Welcome to beautiful Mt Rothwell in Little River,” Rowntree intoned on Instagram. “Do I have to get political to get someone to notice the region that Vic Labor wants to destroy?” she posted in the text.
She then strongly urged – in CAPITAL LETTERS – that her followers vote for Steve Murphy, the Liberal candidate in Saturday’s Werribee byelection.
“He actually took the time to visit the area Labor wants to cover in solar panels and batteries.
“What did Little River ever do to the Labor government? I don’t know why you keep picking on us? No one will talk to us.”
She had tried for seven months to get a response, she said.
“@jacintaallanmp where are you? Why do you want to ruin what is the Number 1 film location in Victoria?”
Rowntree told CBD that The Dressmaker, Ned Kelly and some Mad Max films had all used the area, bringing in millions of dollars, which was now at risk as the Allan government sought to reverse an Andrews government film investment policy.
“There are loads of other nearby locations that are both safe and appropriate. However, the community is being ignored,” she said.
Nine was contacted for comment.
Donations dump
The Australian Electoral Commission’s belated Monday dump of political donations data from the 2023-24 financial year revealed that plenty of money from the big end of town is still flowing towards Climate 200 and the teal independents.
Donor-list debut: Angus Aitken.Credit: Janie Barrett
Among those bucking that trend, however, was prominent stockbroker Angus Aitken, who debuted on the donor list after he gave $230,000 to the Liberals and Nationals plus a further $50,000 to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in the first half of last year. He’s also since chipped in $200,000 to the right-wing rabblerousers at Advance Australia.
When CBD got in touch to quiz Aitken about his political awakening, he told us he’d donated money to a range of conservative causes because he was disgusted by the rise of antisemitism under the Albanese government, whose management of the economy he slammed as “diabolical”.
He then offered a few rather candid observations about the country’s current leadership.
“Albo is the single worst PM in memory. It is a miracle he can stand upright given he has no backbone. He will be cast alongside Turnbull and Rudd as our worst PMs, and we hope Dutton is the next PM to set us back on the right track,” he told CBD.
“If there is a minority Greens/Labor government, then the stock market will fall 30 per cent, and I don’t want to see that happen,” the Sydney stockbroker said.
Bligh ends on a high
So farewell then to Anna Bligh, the former Queensland premier turned chief executive of the Australian Banking Association. Bligh, who turns 65 this year, is retiring after the federal election. Yes, the press release even used the R word.
Anna Bligh in banking mode.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
The path from public service to private industry is well trodden, but Bligh was an early exemplar, joining the ABA in 2017, just in time for the wrath of the nation to descend upon the banks during the 2018 to 2019 royal commission.
“When I started in 2017, the banking industry had lost the trust of the Australian community and it has since worked tirelessly to earn back that trust,” Bligh said, pointing to the mortgage relief banks gave customers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We guess Bligh is right – the blame for the cost-of-living crisis is firmly laid at the feet of the federal government, not the big four banks. And Qantas, Coles and Woolworths are far more hated than NAB, ANZ, Commonwealth or Westpac. So mission accomplished, Anna Bligh!
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