By Kishor Napier-Raman and Noel Towell
Relations between the all-powerful Pharmacy Guild of Australia and the Albanese government have been bumpy of late. The guild’s national president, Trent Twomey, gave a teary press conference in Parliament House earlier this year as the lobby group waged war on the government’s 60-day dispensing rules.
With those changes passed, both parties are promising to play nice as they negotiate an additional $3.3 billion in funding for pharmacists. That peace deal was shaken when a bunch of white-coated pharmacists launched a disruptive protest during question time in Parliament House last month, even though the guild said it had nothing to do with it.
The Pharmacy Guild is promoting Gerard Benedet to its chief executive position.Credit: John Shakespeare
So we’re uncertain whether the guild’s latest move – promoting Gerard Benedet, co-founder of conservative activist group Advance Australia to chief executive – is much of an olive branch.
Benedet ran Advance through the 2019 election campaign, where it was best remembered for bringing us Captain GetUp, a grown man dressed in a superhero outfit who followed Zali Steggall around the hustings.
The former Queensland Liberal National staffer left for the guild later that year, and has held the role of Queensland branch director ever since. But a guild source told CBD that despite Benedet’s history with Advance, his efforts convincing the Queensland Labor government to roll out a trial expanding pharmacists’ ability to prescribe medications and diagnose conditions made him a top pick for the CEO job.
Advance, meanwhile, played a leading role in the campaign against the Voice to parliament and has now set its sights on a new target: the government’s misinformation bill. No doubt it is fiercely opposed to any law that restricts its ability to lie shamelessly without consequence.
BALL BOYS
Former Morrison government ministers Alan Tudge and Christian Porter are both – famously – out of politics now, and don’t have to pay much mind to what their former Liberal Party colleagues think.
So, poor old CBD has to take the calls from Liberal types who don’t want to be named but are still not quite over the trauma of those last years in government, and who would like Tudge in particular to consider keeping a lower profile.
The former Aston MP has a regular column in the local spin-off of UK conservative periodical The Spectator, has popped up in the opinion pages of The Australian, and has posted selfies on the socials with right-wing warriors Rita Panahi, John Anderson and former Victorian Liberal MP Tim Smith.
Tudge and Porter were out and about very publicly on the weekend at Kerry Stokes’ Telethon Ball at Perth’s Crown casino, an annual event where the Seven West Media boss gathers a “most exclusive” cast of resources royalty, political heavies and media sycophants for an invitation-only black-tie charity do.
The two former politicians were accompanied by Karen Espiner, who married Porter in Byron Bay over the summer, and Melbourne personal trainer Tarryn Walsh respectively, all looking very stylish, we must say.
“Our entire table had a wonderful evening and we were all pleased to be supporting such a wonderful cause,” Espiner told us.
“It was a great event for a good cause and I enjoyed catching up with Christian Porter and his wife,” Tudge said.
DAVIES DEPARTS
In more evidence that the Venn diagram between Guardian readers and teal voters is a perfect circle, the publication’s investigations editor Anne Davies is off to work as a media and policy adviser to Mackellar independent MP Sophie Scamps.
It leaves The Guardian, which of late seems more interested in its silly bird poll than doing big investigations, seeking to replace the former Gold Walkley winner, who won the top journalism gong during a long stint at the Herald.
But that departure has also set internal gossip alive at the Graun after Davies’ rather candid exit interview on Friday, held via a Zoom call, was overheard by pretty much everyone in the open-plan Sydney office. The veteran journalist didn’t shy away from expressing her feelings about the state of investigative journalism and the struggles that The Guardian, and other publications, face in overcoming Australia’s tough defamation laws.
Davies told CBD her departure after decades in journalism was a case of the “it’s time” factor.
“I’m sad to be leaving The Guardian but feel like I needed a third chapter in my life, and Sophie is a really amazing, dedicated politician that I’ve found really inspiring,” she said.
“I’ve watched probably about 10 to 15 election campaigns as a journalist and it’ll be very exciting to be the other side of the ledger and run a campaign, something I’ve always wanted to do.”
GOING PUBLIC
Last month, as anti-Alan Joyce sentiment reached fever pitch, and as politicians started tearing up their Qantas Chairman’s Lounge membership, CBD fired off questions to a bunch of government departments, asking which of their top brass were part of the country’s most exclusive club.
Some, like Treasury, hastily updated their gift registers to disclose Chairman’s Lounge memberships. Most never responded.
Now, it seems like the Australian Public Service Commission has had enough, introducing new guidelines forcing agency heads to disclose any airline lounge memberships in their departments’ relevant gift registers.
It’s about time.
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