By Kishor Napier-Raman and Noel Towell
Much to CBD’s frustration, Euro summer is “so back” at levels to rival the hedonistic pre-COVID years.
For Australia’s political class, a long break from parliament means ample opportunity to escape the winter gloom on holidays, study tours and paid-up junkets, which are also very much back.
Parramatta MP Andrew Charlton was spotted in Ramallah, in the West Bank, last week.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
For years, Israel has been the most popular destination for fully paid junkets held by local organisations such as the Australia Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, which have taken members from both sides of politics to the Middle East – and journalists, too, including several from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Meanwhile, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network held its first study tour to Palestine since borders reopened, with Labor’s blow-in Parramatta MP Andrew Charlton and Senator Louise Pratt spotted in Ramallah last week. It comes as the Albanese government faces pressure from within the Labor camp to recognise a Palestinian state.
Unlike Israel trips, the APAN tour is partially self-funded, with politicians stumping up for their own airfares.
Meanwhile, Charlton’s Labor backbench colleague Cassandra Fernando was in Israel this month on a tour hosted by the Australia Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, along with ALP Senator Raff Ciccone and Liberal MPs Keith Wolahan, Andrew McLachlan and Jenny Ware.
They’ve certainly chosen a time to head to the Middle East, with the Israel Defence Forces launching a rampant assault on the West Bank city of Jenin last week.
Wolahan, the special forces Afghanistan veteran who you’d think would have had enough of conflict zones, reported a quiet time, although his group did travel through the area of southern Israel hit with Hamas rockets two days earlier. He’s been a lot closer to hostile fire than that.
NORTH SYDNEY NOS
The Indigenous Voice to parliament continues to cause rifts in some of Australia’s more affluent communities, traditionally Liberal strongholds now beholden to teal independents.
In the east, Liberal members in Wentworth were greeted with a talk from leading No campaigner Warren Mundine last week, with commentary from shadow treasurer Well Done Angus Taylor. That’s despite the Liberal-dominated local council supporting a Yes vote, and the local MP Kellie Sloane showing up at federal member Allegra Spender’s recent Wentworth for the Voice launch event.
Heading over the bridge, North Sydney Council recently voted overwhelmingly to support the Voice, and resolved to hold a community event featuring leading Yes campaigners Thomas Mayo and Kerry O’Brien.
Among the two lonely dissenters in that meeting was colourful former mayor and CBD regular Jilly Gibson who lost her control over council after a decade in charge last year – a reign now best known for presiding over the blown-out, delayed redevelopment of North Sydney swimming pool.
She told CBD she wasn’t necessarily opposed to the Voice, but took issue with the council holding a community forum only presenting one side of the referendum debate.
“Our residents are horrified,” Gibson said of her discussions with locals about the council’s plans to proceed without any insights from people like Mundine and Jacinta Price, who to be fair get a very thorough hearing on Sky News, if that’s your jam.
Gibson’s pleas fell on deaf ears, with only herself and councillor Ian Mutton voting against the successful motion.
BEAZLEY THE BUILDER
Staying briefly in the genteel surrounds of Sydney’s lower north shore, we have an update on NSW Governor Margaret Beazley’s attempted redevelopment of her Lavender Bay home.
Her excellency currently resides behind the neo-gothic revival turrets of Government House at Bennelong Point. But in 2021, with an eye to the future, she submitted a $2.6 million development application for her Lavender Bay home with the council.
The plans did not go down well with neighbours, drawing a series of submissions from locals disgruntled about losing their million-dollar views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.
Her excellency is accustomed to neighbourly disputes, with Government House emerging as a regular source of noise complaints about the cacophony made by party boats cruising the harbour.
Despite some of those complaints even making it onto A Current Affair, Beazley’s application was eventually granted conditional approval last year, and the bulldozers are already hard at work.
But Beazley’s wrangling with the council over the development isn’t finished, with her excellency last week putting in a modified development application to get permission to dismantle and reinstate a heritage-listed sandstone wall, adding about $91,000 to the cost of the renovations.
While planning documents indicate it’ll result in substantially the same development, it could give those disgruntled apartment-dwellers another chance to vent their frustrations with the project.
PRIME MINION’S OFFICE
How many minions does it take to run a prime minister’s office? In the case of Anthony Albanese’s team, it takes 56 people, according to documents released by the Department of Finance under freedom of information laws.
CBD has long had a gut feeling that the Albanese PMO feels more bloated than its predecessor, and the numbers indeed add up – a similar FOI from 2021 found Scott Morrison’s office had a head count of 50.8.
Unsurprisingly, Albanese has far more staffers than his senior cabinet colleagues – with Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Foreign Minister Penny Wong each having 18 listed.
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