By Noel Towell and Kishor Napier-Raman
Few of us would begrudge NSW woman Kathleen Folbigg a few quid in the bank – via a big-money paid interview with Channel Seven – after spending 20 years in the clink for the murders of her four children before being pardoned because the convictions were unsound.
But it looks like that interview might be considerably better-paid than previously reported.
Fair to say that this facet of the story has attracted some media interest with the sum to change hands for the interview initially reported as somewhere between a relatively modest $400,000 and $850,000, even $1 million.
But sources close to the negotiations have told CBD that everybody except Seven pulled out of the talks after being told by Folbigg’s people that the benchmark bid – just for the interview, security expenses incurred in the production process and some archive footage – was $1.5 million.
It probably won’t end there. Folbigg is being represented – ably, you’d have to say – by celebrity agent Nick Fordham, brother of Sydney talkback radio host Ben Fordham whose station 2GB is owned by Nine Entertainment, publisher of The Age – and who boasts the likes of Lisa Wilkinson, Ange Postecoglou and Joe Hockey, of all people, in his stable of talent.
Fordham, who is also into TV production, is understood to be keen to get a documentary made about the Folbigg case with an eye on the international market, and the former prisoner’s participation won’t come cheap.
Seven wouldn’t confirm what they paid for the interview to air on 7NEWS Spotlight on a date to be confirmed, but a source at the network denied the $1.5 million figure, adding a delightful piece of sass that, sadly, we can’t report.
We gave Fordham a shout on Wednesday too, but he didn’t seem to want to talk to us. Maybe he figured we couldn’t afford it.
LORD KNOWS
Lifelong republican Anthony Albanese scored a world of coverage when he rocked up and swore allegiance to King Charles at the Coronation last month, and it looks like Australian monarchists aren’t going to take it any more.
Leading local loyalist – and dissident state Liberal MP – Bev McArthur and her husband, former federal member for Corangamite Fergus “Stewart” McArthur – himself the closest thing you can get to Aussie landed aristocracy – are putting on a few drinks at Melbourne’s Windsor Hotel – where else? – with the Right Honourable Earl of Loudoun Simon Abney-Hastings, who readers might remember lives outside Wangaratta.
Now, Abney-Hastings carried out his ancestral duties as the bearer of the Golden Spurs, symbols of knighthood and chivalry, at the Coronation and will tell the paying plebs – $95-a-pop, with the proceeds going to the Australian Monarchist League – at the Windsor all about his adventures on the day. Bev and Stewart are billing the event as an evening with “the only Australian to play a ceremonial role in the coronation”. Take that, Albo.
HOUSE OF PAIN
Staying on the trials of St Anthony, just for a while: if Albanese thinks Labor’s state conference at the weekend is a space safe from the torment being inflicted on the government over housing policy by Greens and their champion of renters’ votes, sorry, rights, Max Chandler-Mather, then the prime minister is misinformed.
No, Albanese will be copping friendly fire – and not just about AUKUS submarines – as the floor of the conference at Moonee Valley Racecourse gets agitated on Saturday over the housing crisis.
Resolution 15, to be moved by Labor for Housing’s John Weber and seconded by former Tim Pallas staffer Bec Thistleton, now executive director at ALP ideas factory the McKell Institute, wants “it to be the policy of the national [ALP] branch to remove negative gearing tax arrangements for properties which are used for short-stay accommodation”.
That one should come with a trigger warning not only for Albanese, who runs a mile from any meaningful tax reform, and for Bill Shorten, who will be in the room, who took curbs on generous negative gearing tax breaks to the 2019 election with disastrous results. Maybe Chandler-Mather isn’t demanding so much after all...
Credit: John Shakespeare
MEMBER FOR MADRID
George Christensen, the former MP whose frequent trips to parts of the Philippines earned him the moniker Member for Manila, is the latest ex-politician to register as a foreign agent.
But Christensen’s pay cheque is now coming from Spain, after the former Dawson MP scored a new gig as Australian campaign director for Madrid-based anti-LGBQTI group CitizenGo.
The organisation, which was shopping on LinkedIn for the Australian job last month, received initial financial backing from a Russian oligarch closely aligned with Vladimir Putin, and spends most of its time ranting about gay characters in Disney movies.
According to Christensen’s entry on the foreign influence transparency register, which went live last week, his activities will include “political lobbying, parliamentary lobbying and communications activity”.
In practice, that activity has so far amounted to making some petitions, including one urging Communications Minister Michelle Rowland to “Ban This Paedophile Comic Book” and another calling on Anthony Albanese to stop Canberra’s Calvary Hospital – which the ACT government is trying to acquire “being swallowed up in the dark abyss of abortion”.
We hoped to ask George about all this, but he never returned our calls.
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