By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
Well, there we go.
One week into the election campaign, we have our first disendorsement: the Liberal Party’s dumping of Ben Britton as its candidate in the NSW seat of Whitlam, after his weird views about how women should be kicked out of the army became apparent.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton with the former Liberal candidate for Whitlam Benjamin Britton in January.Credit: Facebook
Britton had spent far too long in the sewers of the internet, going on far-right podcasts, and making inflammatory, deeply red-pilled claims about how pornography was turning young men gay and that Aussie farmland is being poisoned by Chinese solar panels.
Britton’s dumping is the final nail in the coffin for the Trump-loving faction of the NSW Liberals, associated with Matt Camenzuli (booted from the party after unsuccessfully suing then-prime minister Scott Morrison over preselection delays before the last federal election) who is now running as an independent against Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen in McMahon.
Britton’s candidacy in the safe Labor seat being vacated by retiring minister Stephen Jones was pushed hard by Camenzuli’s factional comrade Geoff Pearson, a NSW Liberal vice-president. With Britton dumped, that ideological wing of the party has nobody in NSW with any chance of getting elected.
So long, #senatorsixpack?
Could the upper house career of “Senator Sixpack” be coming to an end?
Rumours out of the Canberra bubble suggest David Van, a former Liberal senator for Victoria, booted to the crossbench by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton after several concerning allegations made by his colleagues, won’t be seeking another term.
In 2023, independent senator Lidia Thorpe and former Liberal senator Amanda Stoker accused Van of inappropriate touching and harassment, allegations he denied. Later that year, this masthead reported that Van had used his private Instagram to flirt with women, urging them to comment on his photos with the hashtag #senatorsixpack.
Van has until next Thursday to decide whether he’d like to renominate for another six-year senate term and put his political future in the hands of the people of Victoria on May 3. With chatter that he wouldn’t be returning, we called the good senator to ask, but we received no response.
But Van might have a financial incentive to mount what would probably be an unsuccessful run. If he loses, Van will be eligible for a $105,000 “resettlement allowance”, a one-off payment provided to parliamentarians who fail to get re-elected. Even we struggle to keep up with all the perks sometimes.
Friendly farewell
Former Parramatta lord mayor, also former state member for Granville Tony Issa, who died last week following a lengthy battle with cancer, was farewelled by a who’s who of current and former Liberals at Our Lady Of Lebanon Church in Harris Park on Thursday.
Former Granville MP and Parramatta mayor Tony Issa died last week.Credit: Louie Douvis
Issa was one of just two Liberals to ever hold the normally safe Labor seat of Granville, which he won during the party’s 2011 landslide. Barry O’Farrell, the former premier who led that electoral rout, was at the service, seated next to ex-sports minister and Drummoyne MP John Sidoti.
They’re a pair with the Independent Commission Against Corruption as a common factor in their respective political demises. Sidoti quit cabinet and the Liberal Party and moved to the crossbench over an ICAC investigation, which in 2022 found he had engaged in serious corrupt conduct. O’Farrell resigned as premier after the commission revealed he’d forgotten to declare a $3000 bottle of Grange.
There was no sign of O’Farrell’s two immediate successors as premier, Mike Baird and Gladys Berejiklian, the latter of whom tends to steer clear of overly political engagements, despite a few earlier appearances on the Liberal campaign trail this year. Although state Liberal leader Mark Speakman was in attendance.
The funeral brought together a few of the Liberal Party’s many warring personalities. Former upper house MP and ex-Liverpool Council chief executive John Ajaka was spotted near the local government area’s mayor Ned Mannoun. Ajaka was effectively dumped by Mannoun last year following a bitter falling out at the permanently embattled council. While things remained civil, the pair didn’t speak.
Two other attendees, former upper house MP Peter Poulos and member for Hawkesbury Robyn Preston caught up for an amicable coffee after the service. In 2023, Poulos was suspended from the party, and he was dumped from a winnable spot on its upper house ticket after it was revealed he’d shared explicit photos of Preston five years earlier. Two years on, the pair appear to have made up.
Dog days
We last encountered billionaire pub baron Justin Hemmes causing all manner of irritations in the picture-perfect South Coast hamlet of Narooma, where his maremma sheepdogs keep wandering off his sprawling holiday lair and winding up all over town.
Hemmes’ dogs were the talk of Narooma Facebook groups, and it seems like since our last item in March, someone has been trying to rein them in. Last week, on another community social media group, someone had reached out to identify a local trainer for two large maremma dogs in Narooma.
Hemmes, whose Merivale has Sydney nightlife in a chokehold and is currently plotting an assault on Melbourne, owns four establishments in town, including the local pub, and fish and chip shop, and the presence of a brash eastern suburbs playboy nepo baby never quite gelled with the town’s population of sea changers and Canberra public servants heading to their holiday dachas.
It’s been a rough year for Hemmes, with Merivale the subject of numerous allegations of inappropriate behaviour toward female staff, as revealed in an investigation by this masthead. The company also agreed to pay $19.25 million to settle a lawsuit brought by former employees who said they were underpaid.
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Correction: This story has been updated to say Poulos “shared” rather than “leaked” photos of Preston.