Akerman: Behind all the hand-wringing, Wilkinson and her hypocritic cohorts reveal true colours

Lisa Wilkinson and Peter FitzSimons are probably the scoldiest couple in the country, but they possess an astounding ignorance about the Liberal Party’s long-standing engagement with Indigenous people, writes Piers Akerman.

Forget all the pious hand-wringing about the plight of Aboriginals, the Voice and sexual abuse in dysfunctional remote communities – race is just a joke to be politicised by powerful media figure Lisa Wilkinson.

In a hideously revealing tape of a five-hour meeting between Wilkinson, her producer Angus Llewellyn, alleged rape victim Brittany Higgins and her partner David Sharaz, the former host of The Project chortles about diversity and race. The racism and racial superiority that these woke folk rail against was grotesquely apparent.

Stumbling over the pronunciation of the name of Australia’s shadow Indigenous affairs minister, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Wilkinson and her chuckling cohort mocked the Liberal Party’s diverse candidates.

“(The Liberal Party) has preselected over 20 new and wonderfully diverse and strong female candidates like, and what’s her name – Nam … Nam-pin-jumba? She’s an Indigenous woman,” Wilkinson can be heard saying.

Not to be left out, Sharaz chimed in: “She clearly got in. Clearly, it was a safe seat.” Wilkinson followed with: “That’s the thing, it was – as soon as I looked at it I thought, ‘Oh, you’re joking’.”

Sharaz, who fancies himself as a player in the political mire, offered: “They’ve been preselected in unwinnable seats.” To which Wilkinson responded: “Yeah.”

Lisa Wilkinson and Brittany Higgins.

Llewellyn threw in the facetious comment: “See, we know brown people.” A theme which Sharaz echoed with: “It’s like, I’m not racist, I have a black friend. It’s that argument.”

To which Llewellyn jested “I don’t have his number”, before Wilkinson quipped sarcastically “And our cleaner’s black”. Which in the North Sydney electorate would make that person an extreme minority, as just 0.4 per cent identified as being Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander in 2021.

David Sharaz. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

Peter FitzSimons.

Wilkinson and her husband, the bandana-wearing Peter FitzSimons, are probably the scoldiest couple in the country, quick to offer their views on those who don’t support their republican push, the Voice, feminist activists, and every other woke fantasy.

But they aren’t the smartest people, as their engagement with Higgins has shown, and possess an astounding ignorance about the Liberal Party’s long-standing engagement with Indigenous people.

Wilkinson and her husband’s virtue-signalling took a knocking from media personality Stan Grant after he had been a repeat guest at their much-publicised celebrations on the day before what most Australians enjoy as Australia Day. The Wilkinson-FitzSimons corroboree was all too much for Grant, who wrote a blistering review of the harbourside knees-up in The Australian’s fictionalised murder mystery, Oh Matilda, Who Bloody Killed Her?

“What a woke leftie love-in that was: journos, actors, writers, couple of ex-Wallabies (well, it was the North Shore), a few washed-up politicians,” he penned. “Everyone there voted Yes for same-sex marriage – the year before last, they’d all tearily applauded their first gay married couple guests – they hated the Catholic Church and had cried when Kevin Rudd said ‘Sorry’.”

Grant wrote that the hosts “adored Indigenous culture”, saying “There were dot paintings on the wall, a photo with their arms around Cathy Freeman at Sydney Olympic Stadium, and a framed copy of Paul Keating’s Redfern Statement signed by the last great Australian prime minister himself.”

Sky host Sharri Markson’s airing of excerpts of further texts about the politicisation of the Higgins affair and the claims of engagement with Labor figures, including Anthony Albanese, Katy Gallagher and Tanya Plibersek, certainly warrant investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Commission when it comes into being.

The depth of deceptions surrounding the Higgins affair guarantee it has much further to run. The bottom line is that the promised decency, transparency and openness of the Albanese government is yet another fiction.