By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
While some key American progressives are busy cooking up ways to fight Donald Trump, not so former vice president and failed candidate for the big job Kamala Harris, who will be heading to the Gold Coast to speak at the Australian Real Estate Conference next month.
To be honest, this isn’t a sentence we imagined ourselves writing last week, let alone a few months ago, when the pollsters rated Harris a coin-flip chance of winning the White House.
Unsuccessful presidential candidate Kamala Harris gives her concession speech at Howard University.Credit: AP
And yet, here we are, with Trump wreaking havoc on the global economy, and Harris hanging out with the nation’s finest realtors at the Gold Coast Convention & Exhibition Centre while mulling whether to run for governor of California. Remarkably, this is her first speaking engagement in Australia, and we hear she’s on a tight schedule, jetting in and out of the Gold Coast just for the AREC speech.
But how, exactly? Informed sources tell us it’s because the conference’s organiser, real estate kingpin John McGrath, simply … asked. He’s had some success attracting A-lister types, with past conferences featuring the likes of Ryan Reynolds, Reese Witherspoon and Caitlyn Jenner appearing, albeit via satellite.
We reckon the Harris get isn’t just down to McGrath’s undeniable rizz, but more his willingness to stump up what is an undoubtedly eye-watering speaker’s fee. Harris recently signed with Hollywood speakers’ bureau Creative Artists Agency, and while details of how much she cost McGrath are tightly confidential, a former politician of her ilk could generally bill upward of $US200,000 ($319,000) for their insights.
Also flying in to address the Tarocash-clad hordes is Los Angeles property bro and reality TV star Mauricio Umansky, a villainous side character on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Umansky was represented in a real estate dispute involving a Malibu mansion and the vice president of Equatorial Guinea by Los Angeles lawyer Doug Emhoff, whose main gig over the past four years was to be known as the Second Gentleman of the United States, in other words, Harris’ husband. They’re all connected.
No interviews, although CBD hears the final call will be with Harris’ people. We imagine the prized sit-down would be a toss up between 7.30’s Sarah Ferguson and Luxe Listings Sydney’s Monika Tu.
Train tirade
The morning train commute from the eastern suburbs into the city is normally a sedate one.
But according to our spies, the peace was shattered around 7.30am on Tuesday by cries of “Where’s my money, you dirty dog?“, along with a string of other profanities that simply won’t fly in our family-friendly column.
The crude tirade was delivered by a man in glasses and a dark short-sleeve polo boarding at Kings Cross. His target was Greg Jones, a once high-flying eastern suburbs business personality and former friend of jailed ex-NSW minister Ian Macdonald.
The unnamed harasser repeatedly asked Jones for money, forcing the businessman to hastily disembark at Martin Place.
CBD understands the dispute is related to a personal matter due to be settled in the coming weeks.
Jones was nicknamed “ICAC” Greg due to his starring role in the Cascade Coal fiasco, which saw Macca and fellow disgraced powerbroker Eddie Obeid both jailed.
Macdonald was to get a $4 million cut from Jones’ $60 million payday in a 2009 mining deal, according to evidence before the ICAC. Jones wasn’t investigated over the matter.
More recently, Jones, who’s been bankrupt since 2017 over a debt to American Express, recently had his bankruptcy extended until 2026 owing to his failure to disclose particulars of his income to his bankruptcy trustee Bruce Gleeson (of Melissa Caddick fame).
Safe to say he might be skipping the train for the foreseeable future.
Tinked off
Hard Solo had the last laugh when Kylea Tink, the teal independent member for North Sydney and sworn enemy of the boozy soft drink, had her political future killed off by the unsentimental bureaucrats at the Australian Electoral Commission who abolished her seat last year.
Despite some initial chatter about Tink running in Bradfield (where independent Nicolette Boele had already labelled herself the “shadow member”) or taking a potshot at the Senate, none of that has played out.
Instead, Tink is off to Queensland to fight Peter Dutton. She’s just landed a gig as director of the Community Independent Movement, another organisation set up to campaign and raise funds for teals and teal wannabes around the country, which will give even more ammunition to the Liberals’ desperate claim that they’re all just part of another political party.
First stop for Tink was Dickson in the Brisbane exurbs, held by the opposition leader on a slender 1.7 per cent margin, and where Ellie Smith is the new teal-ish challenger hoping to at least give Labor a leg-up.
“While Peter Dutton is out campaigning to become the next prime minister, it’s clear he has a major challenge to simply retain his seat,” Tink said. “Ellie Smith is an outstanding community-backed candidate for the community of Dickson and could very well unseat the alternative prime minister on May 3.”
Admittedly, that might be a bit of a moonshot, but Tink and the teals have their eyes set on the Sunshine State, with a few seats in the Gold Coast also being targeted. We’ll see if their whole “politics done differently” schtick still resonates without a cartoon villain like Scott Morrison around to rev up their supporters.
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