Next Tuesday, the eyes of the entire political establishment will be laser focused on Canberra, where Treasurer Jim Chalmers will deliver his pre-election budget.
But Clive Palmer’s $110 million Victorian senator Ralph Babet won’t be in Parliament House. Instead, the former real estate agent, who was born on the remote Indian Ocean island of Rodrigues, part of Mauritius, before immigrating to Australia, will be some 400 kilometres away.
Clive Palmer with US TV commentator Tucker Carlson in Brisbane last year.Credit: Glenn Hunt
What could possibly drag him so far from Canberra on the national capital’s night of nights, we hear you ask?
Well, we have an answer for you. Babet will be in Newcastle, north of Sydney, hosting an event tailored to his and Palmer’s right-wing support base. He’ll be the MC for the 2025 edition of the Australian Freedom Conference, where prominent American far-right TV personality Tucker Carlson will be beaming in. Fellow traveller Dinesh D’Souza will also be joining via stream from the States.
$110 million Victorian senator Ralph Babet.Credit: Scott McNaughton
Last year, Palmer managed to lure Carlson to Australia. This time, he’s hoping a video feed of Tucker, who can be watched for free on X (nee Twitter) will be enough to get local fans to cough up $45 for events in Newcastle, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.
“It should be a great night. People are ready for change,” Babet said of Tuesday’s event.
And he had no worries about missing the Chalmers show, leaving a few minions to endure Canberra in his stead.
“My team will be in budget lock-up and reporting back to me what they find. I expect it will not be great,” Babet told CBD via text.
A bone to pick
Well, well, well. The good news is that Pete Evans’ new cookbook doesn’t encourage parents to replace breastmilk or infant formula with bone broth. The bad news is that it warns readers “not to use tap water (unless you have a well)”.
Ten years ago, publisher Pan MacMillan said it would no longer publish Evans’ paleo diet book, which contained a baby milk formula based on liver and bone broth.
The federal Health Department said the book’s recipes for homemade concoctions were “not a suitable alternative” to infant formula that complies with food standards.
Fast-forward to 2025, and Evans is making hay in Donald Trump’s America, much like former prime minister Scott Morrison, mining billionaire Gina Rinehart and nude golfer Greg Norman.
In fact, the MAGA-hat enthusiast recently attended an evening with Trump and enthusiastic maker-of-children Elon Musk at Mar-a-Lago.
Wellness advocate Pete Evans has a new book – no homemade infant formula recipes this time.Credit: Instagram
Evans’ new cookbook, titled Healthy Food for Healthy Kids, is published by a charity chaired by Robert F. Kennedy Jr, an anti-vaccine activist who was recently appointed as US secretary of health and human services.
The book isn’t widely distributed here in Australia, but CBD was intrigued by the promise of baby food recipes, including “comforting and nourishing broths for delicate tummies”.
The Health Department has confirmed the new book contains no homemade infant formula recipes and acknowledges that commercial infant formula is the only suitable alternative to breastmilk. Tick.
To the previously benign matter of water. The book advises not to use tap water unless you have a well, “as it’s filled with metals that accumulate when heated. You don’t want the heavy metals and fluoride. Remember it’s our job to protect our little ones from toxins.”
It’s true that Australians are advised to boil and cool tap water for babies up to 12 months of age.
But water expert Dr Erin O’Donnell says it’s much safer to drink water from your tap than from your private well in major Australian cities.
“The water that comes out of your tap is monitored stringently to confirm it is safe in major urban centres,” she says. “If you live in a capital city in Australia, drink the tap water.”
Staying afloat
To be a Liberal in inner Sydney is to sometimes find yourself in places at which you’re not entirely welcome. Ask the moderates who diligently show up at Mardi Gras every year to a cacophony of boos. If anything, it’s character-building.
Anyway, the latest Liberal to march down Oxford Street in a blue T-shirt was Ro Knox, who has bravely stepped up to lose to Allegra Spender in Wentworth at the coming federal election (if party insiders are to be believed).
But it’s the candidate’s appearance on a float for Waverley Council that has ruffled a few feathers around the eastern suburbs. Ahead of a meeting on Tuesday, independent councillor Steven Lewis thrashed together an urgency motion calling for the council to prepare a report into the event.
Lewis wanted to get to the bottom of whether persons who weren’t councillors or staff were invited onto the float, and who invited them there. More intriguing was the question, raised in the motion, of whether anyone had been requested to get off the Waverley Council float due to excessive consumption of alcohol.
Alas, those mysteries are likely to remain unresolved. Minutes before the motion was set to be debated, it was pulled by the general manager because it was “deemed to be unlawful and not urgent”, the council said.
What happens at Mardi Gras stays at Mardi Gras.
The Liberals’ Wentworth campaign team stated: “Ro is a strong supporter of Wentworth’s LGBTIQA+ community and enjoyed taking part in multiple Mardi Gras events. It’s a shame that some people would want to complain about Liberals celebrating Mardi Gras and the community.”
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.