By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
CBD was delighted to learn that Tabcorp, under the new management of ex-AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan, has decided to take the brave step of banning politicians from its marquee The Birdcage during Melbourne Cup week.
The gaming, media and wagering services company missed its cost guidance by about $60 million at its results in August and its share price tanked, 18 days into the McLachlan tenure – so cost-cutting is now a big focus. TAB will also axe its secondary entertainment structure near Flemington’s winning post, well away from The Birdcage.
GIllon McLachlan has banned pollies from Tabcorp’s Birdcage marquee.Credit: Arsineh Houspian
Tabcorp will lavish attention on clients in its marquee, instead of snout-in-the-trough elected officials out for a good time on someone else’s dime.
You have to hand it to McLachlan, CBD thought, loving the delicious dose of schadenfreude.
But that was before we learnt McLachlan’s marquee ban also extended to journalists, including your columnists.
So now we feel McLachlan is exhibiting a rather hamfisted approach to stakeholder relations, and giving succour to critics who always thought his sector inexperience meant he was a bad fit for the job.
The loss of such hospitality privileges will create additional anguish for politicians already smarting from the knowledge that some wise soul scheduled a House of Representatives sitting week, as well as Senate Estimates, for the first week of November.
Looks like Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s requests for his cabinet to say nup to the Cup have finally worked, in a way.
Tabcorp, which declined to give us a statement on the record, won’t even be welcoming politicians on the first Saturday’s Derby Day. That leaves Stakes Day at the unfashionable back end of the Cup week calendar for any puntaholic pollies to enjoy.
DON’T THEY KNOW WHO SHE IS?
CBD would like to wish a very happy political comeback to former federal Labor MP and friend of the column Belinda Neal, officially elected to Central Coast Council on Monday.
Neal, along with her former Labor powerbroker husband John Della Bosca, is best known for an alleged 2008 altercation with staff at Central Coast nightclub Iguana Joe’s. Neal denies having screamed at staff, “Don’t you know who I am?”, and a police investigation into the incident resulted in no charges being laid. Still, no surprises the media referred to those two as “the Clintons of the Central Coast”.
Never quite living down Iguana-gate, Neal lost preselection for her lower house seat of Robertson in 2010 just three years after getting elected. She failed to get preselected for a state seat four years later, and in 2017 was expelled from Labor.
After successfully overturning that ban in 2022 Neal was granted life membership of the ALP this year.
Clintons of the Central Coast: John Della Bosca and Belinda Neal pictured in 2011.Credit: Nick Moir
She got a winnable spot on the council election ballot despite opposition from associates of Senator Deb O’Neill, who turfed Belinda out of her lower house seat all those years ago and has more recently come to prominence tormenting PwC after last year’s tax-leak scandal.
With Neal back in politics we’ll be sure to keep an eye on the Central Coast.
WHERE’S HAWKIE?
A distressed reader wrote to CBD over the weekend with a troubling mystery: a picture of Bob Hawke had disappeared from the prime minister’s wall of the Kirribilli Hotel.
Once, a signed photograph of Hawke adorned the wall alongside similarly autographed pictures of former leaders including Paul Keating, Gough Whitlam and John Howard. But, much like the Sydney Swans on grand-final day, the Hawke portrait was missing, leaving our tipster to speculate about right-wing goons desecrating the great man’s legacy.
But CBD’s investigations revealed that this was a crime of passion. When we called the pub, we were informed that the Hawke portrait had been stolen last year by a group of 18-year-old miscreants who were big fans of the former prime minister and evidently shared his love for a few frothy ones.
It was a painful loss for the pub – the picture was signed before Hawke’s death in 2019, and had been stolen the very week they’d celebrated getting Hawke’s Brewing on tap. So the pub took to Facebook with an impassioned plea for its return, noting that they had CCTV footage of the offending lads.
The thieves responded with a handwritten poem, with oblique references to the portrait getting lost during a night of youthful revelry, slid under the door along with a $100 bill. While the Kirribilli Hotel is yet to find an autographed picture of the former PM, we hear a replacement will be up on the wall soon.
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