In the frenzied hustle and bustle of a federal election campaign, there are often too many blunders, gaffes and scandals to keep track of.
Regular readers, though, will surely recall with fondness the “fake tradie” debacle that popped up during Tim Wilson’s tilt to win back the federal seat of Goldstein from teal independent Zoe Daniel in April, after she ousted him in 2022.
Tim Wilson’s campaign ad featuring the “fake tradie”.
The Age reported how an online ad for the Liberal candidate featured a tradie or builder in a high-vis and hard hat ensemble who turned out to be Liberal campaign volunteer Frazer Hurst. How very thespian.
As we reported at the time, Hurst’s LinkedIn profile listed him as a politics student at Monash University, duty manager at Brighton Coles and a branch secretary of the Liberal Party.
As history (and Wilson) will tell you, the Liberal candidate won the seat off the teal independent by 175 votes, making him the Liberal Party’s ultimate comeback kid.
CBD recently caught word that Hurst had been promoted to a paid position at the MP’s Brighton East office. But it’s not quite LinkedIn official yet.
Naturally, we put in a call to Wilson’s new electoral office. And you can imagine our surprise when the member for Goldstein personally phoned back. (Apparently, the search for staff has left him occasionally working the phones. And federal parliament is yet to sit – that’s next week.)
The MP initially didn’t want to comment, citing non-relevance. But shortly afterwards, we received a comment via text from Goldstein HQ.
“Mr Hurst was an outstanding volunteer during the campaign and that continued in the month after the election, so he was a logical fit when I was looking for staff and he’s doing an outstanding job,” the statement read.
Sounds like a great hire, and we are hoping against hope that the high-vis and hard hat make a guest appearance around the corridors of power.
Chairman Kim is Australia all over
ABC chair Kim Williams has been busy. Very busy.
Since ascending to the job last year, Williams has become the kind of bloke who’d talk to a brick wall. His very serious thoughts have graced numerous writers’ festivals, annual orations, Friends of the ABC wine and cheese nights, and speeches at the National Press Club, the Melbourne Press Club, the State Library of Victoria, the General Sir John Monash Oration, the Lowy Institute Media Lecture, and the DG8 Summit, as well as many a media article.
On top of that, he’s had to whip the public broadcaster into shape and press the flesh at its bureaux around the country.
All that moving and shaking comes with a hefty travel bill. According to documents released under freedom of information, taxpayers stumped up $55,087 for Williams’ travel expenses between last March, when he started the job, and May.
ABC chair Kim Williams has been out and about. Credit: Wolter Peeters
The bulk of that, $48,338.50, came from airfares, while $6749 was spent on car travel.
“The ABC chair receives remuneration and expenses for their service on the ABC board, including allowances for travel,” a spokeswoman for Aunty told us.
“Rates are set by the Remuneration Tribunal and are reviewed each year.”
Williams takes home a salary of a little over $200,000, a rather modest return for a senior public servant. And his expenses, as far as we are aware, don’t include thousands spent on luxury car hire like his predecessor Ita Buttrose, who billed the public for luxury car hire, including for trips to Beppi’s in Darlinghurst.
Perhaps that might make a line in Buttrose’s new memoir, Unapologetically Ita – set to drop in October – which we are awaiting with bated breath.
Aunty exec has worked all Four Corners
Sticking with the ABC, and it’s a big CBD hello to Freya Campbell, who started last week as director of communications. She has replaced Nick Leys, who, as this column first reported, left to work for Lord Mayor of Melbourne Nick Reece, where he joins another Aunty alumnus in Chaser funnyman turned speechwriter Andrew Hansen.
Campbell comes to Aunty after a long media career that has taken her to all corners of the earth – even the University of NSW, where she trod the boards as executive director of strategic communications.
She was also assistant general manager of marketing and comms at Austrade, managing a team responsible for communications across 80 locations in 48 markets.
The Austrade job included a secondment in the office of then-Indonesian president Joko Widodo advising the country on its “inaugural nation brand”. Whatever that means.
Years before that, she had a stint in Abu Dhabi’s Department of Tourism and Culture as director of marketing, “positioning the emirate of Abu Dhabi in a global setting”.
All of which should make dealing with the national ranks of ABC watchers, such as your good columnists, a doddle. Somehow we doubt it.
Can’t let go
Spotted: Next week, it’s back to big school for Australia’s federal members and senators, with parliament sitting for the first time since Anthony Albanese’s crushing election victory in May.
And while the Coalition ranks are now greatly diminished, at least one departing MP is still hanging around. CBD’s spies spotted former Nationals senator Perrin Davey, who lost her seat in the May massacre, at Aussies cafe in Parliament this week (where else?).
She was briefly joined by shadow foreign affairs minister Michaelia Cash, from whom we’ve heard surprisingly little given the state of the world.
We wondered whether Davey had quickly landed a new job among the inmates of Parliament House. Turns out, it was simply an opportunistic catch-up with Cashie.
As for what the former senator does next, Davey was an actor in a past life, even appearing as an extra in The Matrix, so CBD is hoping she makes a return to the big screen.