PM’s protest past unveiled as he cracks down on activists
The Sauce: Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants to crack down on activists, but a picture shows he was partial to a protest himself. What spurred ScoMo to take to the streets in 1997?
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With activists up in arms over a bid by Prime Minister Scott Morrison to crack down on protests, The Sauce was curious to learn if the Liberal leader himself had ever dallied in a demonstration.
Turns out he sure did.
Not only did ScoMo take part in a street march, a newspaper photograph of the 1997 event unearthed by The Sauce shows the then-Tourism Council Australia deputy chief executive officer even took heartily to a megaphone.
Also taking part in the rally — held by angry hotel workers protesting against the then-Carr government’s plans to introduce a “bed tax” — was none other than Canberra lobbyist and Liberal powerbroker Michael Photios, then the state member for Ermington.
Neither of the pair were identified in the The Daily Telegraph photograph, which is captioned: “Hotel staff protest against the bed tax outside parliament”.
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However the two Liberal operatives did not go unnoticed, with then-premier Bob Carr seizing on the image during Question Time.
Asked what the response to the tax was, Mr Carr noted the “outraged hotel workers” in
the photograph.
“They were rather thinly disguised, because one of them has been identified as Scott Morrison, the deputy chief executive officer of Tourism Council Australia,” he said.
“The other outraged Sydney hotel worker … our dear friend the member for Ermington.
“He was surrounded by a gaggle of young Liberals, in a broad-rimmed hat — a Groucho mask. There he was, cast as an outraged hotel worker.”
While Mr Morrison’s new draft laws are designed to ban protesters from boycotting companies, there are some who believe it’s the first step towards a total crackdown.
Whatever your view, at least we now know that ScoMo has some first-hand experience of exactly what he’s talking about.
GHOST TRAIN
It’s a $20 billion project that promises to transform Western Sydney, but that’s clearly not enough for the federal government to splash some cash.
In a bid to force Treasury to open up the purse strings, a delegation of transport and business stakeholders decided to head to Canberra late last month to make a friend of Cities and Urban Infrastructure Minister Alan Tudge.
It was not to be. Word is the Morrison government wants to fund fast rail rather than a metro.
But a source close to the delegation reckons there was another reason they were shown the door.
In a case of poor timing, Transport Minister Andrew Constance launched a scathing attack on the government for refusing to “cough up” a day earlier.
“It was a bit awkward,” the source said. Stay tuned.
NO MERC-Y
An ugly but entertaining spat is under way in Western Sydney between a mayor who recently defected from the ALP to become an independent and a local Labor elder.
Steve Christou was a Labor Cumberland councillor who worked for ex-Rudd government parliamentary secretary Laurie Ferguson before he quit the party to become mayor on the back of Liberal and independent support.
Council sources say the Liberals backed Christou simply to split the ALP.
Understandably, the defection left Ferguson less than impressed.
Ferguson, whose clan has long controlled many of the local ALP branches and undoubtedly helped Christou on his path, recently took to social media to express his disdain.
In one of the latest posts, Ferguson uploaded a photograph of a Mercedes believed to be owned by Christou, while noting the “high level of welfare dependence and poverty” in the local area.
“The moral appears to be that if you are treacherous and disloyal you to (sic) can have a Mercedes,” he wrote. Ouch.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
She was forced out of federal minister Ken Wyatt’s office due to her poor behaviour, but it appears the Canberra staffer at the centre of a taxpayer-funded bullying probe is back.
In 2018 Paula Gelo — as she was known — was criticised by her colleagues but her minister stood by her, even threatening to quit parliament in order to protect her from being investigated.
At the height of unpleasantness, staff from Greg Hunt’s office popped into the Wyatt office to see what all the fuss was about after hearing a spat.
The Sauce understands Gelo quietly moved on from Wyatt’s office after the election but has reappeared as a lobbyist at Australian Public Affairs (APA).
Paula Smith, as she is now known, has rebranded and is promoting herself as an expert in “advocacy and lobbying” — something her former colleagues could no doubt agree on.
And according to a quote on her online profile, not much has changed: “No matter the problem, there is always a solution, it’s just about the perspective and execution.”
AWKWARD ENCOUNTERS
A controversial Sydney developer is not getting much love in securing a meeting with a high-profile Liberal politician.
The politician in question told The Sauce the developer has been trying to bed down a date, going so far as pushing his finger into the politician’s chest during a public function.
The same developer is also understood to be haranguing local MPs to secure invites for himself and his wife to official functions.
With the corruption watchdog understood to be closely examining the activities of developers and politicians across Sydney — The Sauce has been told several raids of properties around inner-Sydney have occurred in recent months — it is no surprise publicly elected officials are being choosier who they wine and dine.
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