More bad news: Victoria has pulled out of the race to host the Gay Games. First the Commonwealth Games was abandoned at great expense, we hear you cry, now this.
It was only in August that the state government was talking about how Gay Games organisers had put it on the short list to host the 2030 incarnation of the world’s biggest LGBTQ sporting event.
Victoria will not host the Gay Games in 2030.
Tourism, Sport and Major Events Minister Steve Dimopoulos puffed up his chest with pride about Melbourne’s track record on queer equality, telling the ABC that it was “far ahead of any other city in this country”, including Sydney.
Melbourne’s competitors to host the 2030 event were Perth, Auckland, Taipei, Cape Town, Denver and Edmonton in Canada.
Dimma was on a roll. “I love Perth, but seriously it’s Perth,” he said in August. “There is no comparison; Melbourne is a global city.”
But now it has fallen to a “state government spokesperson” to confirm the bad news, while maintaining that Melbourne is still the major events capital, one visitors flock to for our “pipeline of iconic events” including Pride and Midsumma.
“This was an early stage, expression-of-interest process that was being led by an LGBTIQA+ community group, not the Victorian government,” the spokesman said.
Rude, we thought, blaming a community group.
Step forward Liberal MP James Newbury, the state opposition’s equality spokesman, who took time out from leading his Brighton seniors insurgence to lash the government.
“The two-faced Labor government preach that equality isn’t negotiable, but it turns out that under Jacinta Allan it is. Labor has sold out Victoria’s rainbow community, because the state is broke and then hid the decision.”
Thank goodness the government is still making progress on the megadeal to host the ABBA Voyage holographic concert. Negotiations on that front are moving forward, albeit slowly. The London-based chief executive of ABBA Voyage, Michael Bolingbroke, was in Melbourne for another visit, where he caught up with Premier Jacinta Allan and Treasurer Tim Pallas. No doubt asking the government for a lot of Money, Money, Money.
On the ball
Officially, the Australian Open starts on January 12. But the real contest, that of sponsors spending millions to hitch their wagon to the worldwide fascination with tennis, has already begun.
So to Melbourne rooftop bar Siglo on Wednesday, where the venue hosted a lunch to celebrate the fact that Emirates has forked out millions to extend its sponsorship of the AO for another five years, taking it to 2029.
Tennis Australia chief executive Craig Tiley and tennis great Sam Stosur announced the extension but didn’t stay for lunch, where Emirates regional sales manager Dean Cleaver sat next to Tennis Australia chief commercial officer Cedric Cornelis and enjoyed a cheeky lunchtime champagne.
Collingwood player Jack Crisp and wife Mikayla at the Emirates and Australian Open lunch at Siglo.Credit: Jordan Price
AFL stars from Emirates-sponsored Collingwood were on deck including Darcy Moore; Josh Daicos with fiancee Annalise Dalins; and Jack Crisp with wife Mikayla Crisp.
Journalists, presenters, influencers and social personalities were also in attendance. The only people thin on the ground were actual tennis players.
PM power lunch
Q: What do the prime minister, Labor icon Graham Richardson, Nine Network entertainment guru Richard Wilkins and ex-Socceroo Mark Bosnich have in common?
Famed Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson.Credit: Ben Appleton
A: Sunday lunch at Sydney’s Malaya restaurant, where the powerful quartet was spotted by a CBD reader cunningly disguised as a bowl of laksa.
As PM, Anthony Albanese ends up lunching with all manner of people, some more colourful than others. As does Richo, the famed Labor powerbroker, and one of the greatest practitioners of the art of lunching this nation has ever produced.
But the sight of that particular formidable foursome together at the same table was a true fellas moment – and a sign of Richo’s remarkable longevity as a man about town. As CBD reported a few months ago, Bosnich and Wilkins both attended the former senator turned Sky News pundit and lobbyist’s birthday lunch at the very same restaurant.
“Albo and I are old mates and we have lunch together occasionally,” Richardson told us. “I’m also old mates with Mark Bosnich and Richard Wilkins.”
The lunch also represents the latest stage in a remarkable comeback for Bozza, a now beloved pundit whose journeyman career in the Premier League was better known for off-field incidents than his goalkeeping. Now he’s made it all the way to the prime minister’s table. Who said Australia doesn’t do second chances?
Strong moral fibre
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare seems a strait-laced sort, the kind of guy who declares every little decorative keychain he’s given on his register of interests.
So CBD was a little surprised to see that according to data sourced from the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority, Clare had billed taxpayers $3500 for his home internet for a mere three months of usage. Talk about fibre to the node!
We recalled the time when former Coalition minister for failing upwards Stuart Robert was forced to repay $38,000 in excessive home internet charges to the taxpayer; presumably he was just playing a lot of Fortnite or whatever. A case of history repeating?
Minister Jason ClareCredit: Alex Ellinghausen
Clare’s expenses report just didn’t stack up – the same data also suggested he paid back about $1000. The whole thing was a mystery to Clare’s office too. It had no record of him billing that kind of money for home internet, which was set up and managed by the Department of Finance. A spokesperson told us the charges seemed “irregular”.
“The minister has written to the department for an explanation about these charges,” they said. “The Department of Finance has confirmed Telstra are investigating and so far have identified one credit owing to the Commonwealth.”
Meanwhile, CBD’s inquiries were referred to the Department of Finance, which eventually confirmed that the minister had never paid any money back to the taxpayer. The discrepancies, you see, related to how the data was recorded. Or something.
A very messy situation, but it seems like Clare is in the clear. Public transparency, however, is not.
Expenses data for politicians only came back online in late 2023 after being offline for a year and a half following a botched software upgrade.
Seems like all that time offline still hasn’t cleaned the bugs out of the system.
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