The Sauce: It’s game on for the first meeting of the new shadow cabinet
Anthony Albanese’s first shadow cabinet meeting will be held in Brisbane this week, but only a cynic would suggest the timing and location were chosen to coincide with a certain big footy game …
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Labor’s newly announced shadow cabinet will meet in Brisbane for the first time this week. The Sauce couldn’t help but notice the meeting coincides with Game One of the Origin series.
We’d never accuse Labor of scheduling a meeting with the big game in mind, but we certainly won’t be surprised if a number of Labor frontbenchers end up at Suncorp on Wednesday, given taxpayers will have already covered their flights.
It would be rude not to.
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SMILING THROUGH TEARS
More than 20 of failed former Labor leader Bill Shorten’s staff caught up in Canberra last week for a final goodbye ahead of the first Caucus meeting.
Despite the disastrous election result, they all seemed happy enough. We’d love to see what they’d be like if they won!
Meanwhile, new Labor leader Anthony Albanese has poached at least one media adviser from team Shorten, with Fiona Sugden sticking around in the Opposition leader’s office.
Sugden, a former press secretary to Kevin Rudd, was lured back to Australia late last year from a job in the British Foreign Office.
Within 10 days of the election loss, the mother-of-five was back on the road, travelling with new boss Albo as he visited Queensland.
PREMATURE TRANSITION
Speaking of the election, The Sauce hears taxpayers footed the bill for bureaucrats to travel to Melbourne on the night of the vote to help Bill Shorten transition to the role of PM.
We’re told up to four staff from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet were allocated the task of helping the Shortens on day one should they need to relocate to The Lodge.
Back in Canberra, the PM’s department took over a whole room in the ministerial wing to help incoming ministers settle into their new digs.
Given there has only been a handful of changes to Morrison’s frontbench The Sauce can’t help but think the public service was banking on a different outcome.
BACK IN BUSINESS
Everyone is no doubt happy to see former PM Malcolm Turnbull back in employment.
Nine months after he somewhat unwillingly joined the unemployment queue, Turnbull has returned to the world of finance as a global senior adviser to investment firm KKR & Co.
The Sauce thinks the job will make for some interesting water-cooler conversations, with former chairman of Qantas Airways Leigh Clifford and former Singaporean minister Lim Hwee Hua also on the books.
WAITING BY THE PHONE
Wannabe frontbenchers spent last weekend watching their phones, hoping for a call from ScoMo or his deputy JoFry letting them know they had made it to the ministry.
The one exception was new minister Jason Wood, who promised his wife and daughter he would turn his phone off during a matinee performance of Harry Potter And The Cursed Child at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre.
Wood only heard the good news when he emerged from the show later in the day. Magic!
TEXTING TIMES
The Sauce can only imagine how many text messages new Labor leader Anthony Albanese has received since taking over the party’s leadership.
Among the wellwishers, PM Scott Morrison flicked a message to his new opponent to wish him well in the new role.
First the PM sent the congratulatory text to the wrong number before his staff found the right number for Albanese.
The only problem was Albo didn’t know who it was from.
“I thought it was from Scott, my mate from Concord, who I grew up with,” Albo told colleagues in a party room meeting.
A great portent of things to come between the two leaders, perhaps?
PYNE WORK
Coalition heavyweight Christopher Pyne may have left the parliament but his inspirational words apparently live on.
The Sauce is told Liberal campaign staff were encouraged during the election to be “fixers” — with a famous quote by Pyne plastered on the wall of the Libs’ Brisbane HQ for motivation.
If you need reminding, Pyne famously said in 2015: “I’ve fixed it. I’m a fixer. I fixed it by funding it in another way which you’ll find out in the budget. I fixed it.”
Inspiring stuff indeed.
Got some Sauce? Contact:
linda.silmalis@news.com.au
miranda.wood@news.com.au or
annika.smethurst@news.com.au
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