Backroom Baz: Gippsland East MP Tim Bull garners credit where credit isn’t due
Politicians are quick to lap up praise at getting the job done, but one Gippsland East MP didn’t even have time to acknowledge the work needed doing before the bulldozer rolled in, writes Backroom Baz.
VIC News
Don't miss out on the headlines from VIC News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Everyone loves a politician who fixes problems, particularly if they move fast.
Baz has learnt of a woman in Gippsland East who was recently impressed by local MP, Tim Bull, whom she now believes moves as swiftly as a Pamplona tourist in July.
The constituent had called on Bull at 7pm one evening, asking for his help with a gravel road outside her home.
Unable to reach him by phone, she left a voicemail describing a three-year battle to have the council grade the road. Clearly, it was time to call in the Bull-dozer!
Lo-and-behold, the next day at about 7am, the woman found workers with heavy machinery at her door, ready to get the job done.
She left another voicemail for Bull, saying: “I don’t know what you’ve done but there is a grader there already, so thanks”.
Bull was also left wondering what he had done, given he hadn’t had a chance to make a single phone call about the matter overnight.
DAN’S LONELY PLANET
Premier Daniel Andrews jets off to China this week for the second time this year.
And yet again, he will only have Seven’s Brendan Donohoe and Nine’s Andrew Lund for company from the Victorian press gallery.
The TV stalwarts are typically the only reporters who manage to score an invite on the Premier’s overseas trips.
Unlike the Prime Minister’s office, which makes an extensive effort to take an Australian press pack on foreign jaunts, most Spring St correspondents are left in the dark about the Premier’s travel until happy snaps appear on Instagram.
And as one wry scribe muttered last week, there is a certain irony about the invite-only visits to China, one of the world’s leaders in media censorship.
Baz hears access will be improved next time around, so he’ll dig out his passport while watching from afar this week for what promises to be another interesting trip.
LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT ...
The tectonic plates are shifting under Labor’s factional landscape. But whether there’s an earthquake depends on who you ask.
From November 11, the Left-aligned United Voice will merge with the National Union of Workers, which sits in Labor’s Right.
They’re joining forces to create the 150,000-strong United Workers Union.
Some of Baz’s spies reckon this puts the Left in charge of Labor’s Victorian branch, with the NUW’s numbers moving out of the Right.
But NUW powerbrokers aren’t having a bar of that, saying they will remain with the Right in Victoria even though the new United Workers Union will essentially sit in the Left of Labor on a national level.
It’s likely too late for the changes to affect voting numbers at Labor’s state conference on November 16-17.
Baz hears that hasn’t stopped conversations about whether the merged union could split on policy positions in the future, and what might happen in preselections for NUW-aligned seats.
Watch this space.
THEY’RE BACK IN THE BUBBLE
Victoria’s pollies were back in state Parliament last week after yet another lengthy spell between sitting days.
But Lisa Neville wasn’t sighted after coming to grief in a nasty tumble.
True to form, the Police Minister ignored the pain for more than a day, before finally seeing a doctor who informed her that she had broken her shoulder.
Jacinta Allan was another who didn’t spend as much time in the chamber as expected.
MORE FROM BACKROOM BAZ:
NO PAPERING OVER PLUMBING STINK
GONE FISHING IN WAR OVER WAGES
The Leader of the House got herself booted for the heinous crime of using a prop — a fake ticket produced by the former Napthine government for its non-existent airport rail link.
It prompted some Twitter commentary that a baby in the public gallery was better behaved than the MPs he was watching.
Baz was shocked to learn later that the peaceful child was the nephew of Liberal MP Tim Smith, who is notorious for his misbehaviour in the chamber.
Meanwhile, the Premier himself briefly struggled to make it inside the building, as he dodged the press pack on the front steps, only to be blocked by a locked door.
After all that, Baz reckons it’s a shame there are only three sitting weeks left for the year.
OVERHEARD BY BAZ
“Is that the Harry Potter platform? Platform 9 and ¾?”
Labor MP Frank McGuire’s literary reference during a parliamentary debate over the airport rail link plan.
GOT ANY POLITICAL SCUTTLEBUTT FOR BAZ?