A year ago, Clive Palmer spent $116 million of his hard-earned mining money getting a single senator – Victorian realtor Ralph “Deej” Babet – elected to parliament.
Babet hasn’t exactly set the upper house on fire since. In between ranting about drag queens, he’s made it clear parliamentary duties are getting in the way of him selling more real estate, complaining that he was taking a pay cut by trading in the property game for a senator’s circa $200,000 salary.
Featured prominently on the social media accounts of Babet Brothers, the real estate company he co-owned with his brother, Bertrand Babet (a business known as Nude Fit Nutrition until 2020), the senator seems firmly committed to the side hustle.
But recent parliamentary register of interest disclosures and filings with the corporate regulator reveal that Babet has stepped away from his directorship of the family company, leaving us worried he may have lost his zeal for the property game.
Not a chance. Babet told CBD on Sunday while he was “absolutely” still working for the business and turning up at inspections around the Melbourne mortgage belt every weekend, he’d handed over sole directorship to his brother because he’s too busy being a senator.
“My brother is doing all of the work in the family business and it is only fair that I resign my directorship and grant him full control of the business,” he said.
Babet maintained he had no intention of being a “career politician” and would be back in the game after his six-year term finishes up.
He proceeded to question why this masthead didn’t share his concerns about some of the big issues affecting hard-working Australians: drag queens reading picture books to children, destruction of family values and the United Nations apparently trying to control our health policy.
BANDING TOGETHER
Ever since Employment, Workplace Relations and Arts Minister Tony Burke claimed Gang of Youths as his favourite band, we’ve been a little sceptical about his whole “big music guy” schtick.
But we’ll put our judgment on hold until we’ve heard more from Left Right Out, the band Burke leads with a rotating cast of Labor MPs and staffers that has been jamming up a storm in one of the caucus anterooms in Parliament House.
Burke is usually on guitar and keys, and accompaniment includes MP Graham Perrett (bass), Anthony Albanese speechwriter James Jeffrey on bagpipes, with vocal duties shared by Veterans Affairs Minister Matt Keogh and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland’s press secretary Arley Black, who had a past life as a singer-songwriter.
Left Right Out is set to hit the big stage in the building’s great hall for a gig accompanied by none other than Jimmy Barnes and The Wiggles.
A bit of peak Australiana for which we have Parliamentary Friends of Australian Children’s Storytelling (yes, a real group) to thank.
Barnesy is a well-known true believer, with Albanese opening his Bluesfest gig during last year’s election campaign, so we’re sure he’ll always have a place in the Labor band should he want it.
MARTYN MOVES ON
CBD has long been intrigued by the baby-faced former Australian Christian Lobby boss’ Martyn Iles, who parted ways with the group earlier this year after it emerged he was a little too into preaching the gospel to have much success working the corridors of power.
Iles now has a new gig taking him a very long way from Canberra, a city he slammed as a “godless” place filled with “spiritual deadness” on his way out the door.
He’s relocating to Cincinnati, Ohio, to take on the job of chief ministry officer at Answers in Genesis, a fundamentalist creationist movement based in neighbouring Kentucky.
It’s the kind of group that could exist only in flyover country, USA. Founded by fellow Queenslander Ken Ham, Answers in Genesis is best known for creating a kind of Disneyland for homeschooled Evangelicals – a “creation” museum, and a theme park based on Noah’s Ark, which features a giant replica of the biblical boat.
Iles’ old employers at the ACL always had a slightly uncomfortable relationship with the LGBTQ community. AiG, meanwhile, take it to a whole other level. Their website describes homosexual behaviour and same-sex marriage as “deviations from God’s design” that are “repeatedly condemned”.
It’s truly a long way from Canberra and its rainbow roundabouts.
SINGING ALONG
Staying with the faithful, Hillsong founder Brian Houston’s resignation last year, after he was found to have breached its moral code in his behaviour with two women, is still sending ripples through the global megachurch.
With a US TV documentary on the many scandals at Hillsong recently hitting screens, Houston fired up his webcam to record a long Instagram live video rambling about “crazy slanderous documentaries” sullying the good name of his “joyful” church.
Meanwhile, more of the Houston clan followed Brian and his wife, Bobbie, out the door, with his daughter Laura Toggs and son-in-law Peter moving on from the church in which they were youth pastors. But making it very clear there was no ill will.
“It’s about Pete and I stepping into our future and carving a path,” she said during a service shared on Instagram.