By Kishor Napier-Raman and Noel Towell
CBD brought word a few months back that, faced with a pro-republican Labor government, and the prospect of a referendum, Australia’s monarchists were enlisting some of the country’s dearest old Liberal fogies to defend the crown.
The monarchists’ dream pick to counter Peter FitzSimons, Malcolm Turnbull, and the weight of a republican-tinged Labor government, was former prime minister Tony Abbott. But it looks like Abbott was too busy with his other speaking gigs to help out. Yesterday, the Australian Monarchist League unveiled former Tasmanian Liberal Senator Eric Abetz as its chairman.
Eric Abetz and Peter Fitzsimons.Credit: John Shakespeare
A veteran social conservative who lost his Senate seat at the last election, Abetz was already advising the League behind the scenes. The Philip Benwell-led outfit has called on media to offer Abetz equal airtime to FitzSimons, Assistant Minister for the Republic Matt Thistlethwaite or any other government official. So with any luck, we could still be hearing from the gloomy Tasmanian for years to come.
Fly in Farage
It’s going to be a real spring awakening for Australian fans of right-wing talking heads. On the October long weekend, the Conservative Political Action Conference - our local version of the American right-wing Coachella – returns to Sydney.
After initially promoting Sydney’s Luna Park as the location for the shindig, CPAC has backtracked. Although the organisation was very proud to announce last week that it had secured “a venue” (details undisclosed) in Sydney’s CBD for its “middle Australia talkfest,” despite alleged attempts from “the left-wing cancel culture crowd” to shut it down.
As CBD has reported, the event will bring together a real who’s who of the right-wing intelligentsia. Former prime minister Tony Abbott is the main domestic headliner, along with a posse of conservative Coalition senators – new Country Liberal Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Matt Canavan and Alex Antic.
Alan Jones will be there, as will SBS board member and CPAC chair Warren Mundine, former Queensland LNP senator Amanda Stoker, Daily Telegraph political editor James Morrow and News Corp cartoonist Johannes Leak.
But, as usual, the biggest foreign drawcard is former United Kingdom Independence Party leader Nigel “Mr Brexit” Farage.
Farage, a real Sky News darling, is making the most of his trip Down Under. He’s set to address a series of events in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane ahead of CPAC, and they ain’t cheap either – tickets start from $89, with a $295 VIP meet and greet, $495 backstage pass, and $1250 private dinner also on offer.
The series is put together by a mob called Turning Point Australia, another local spin-off, this time of pro-Trump Turning Point USA, founded by talk hosts hoping to make conservative values cool on college campuses.
The brains behind the local outfit is one Joel Jammal, a right-wing YouTuber, anti-lockdown protestor and Craig Kelly associate.
What goes around . . .
The crowd-sourced legal fighting fund established by Eric Beecher’s online news site Crikey to pay for its looming defamation showdown with Lachlan Murdoch is hitting its straps with $430,000 raised so far from more than 500 donors.
And there are some prominent names from Murdoch’s past appearing on the GoFundMe page, including Australian TV legend Andrew Denton.
According to Bruce Guthrie, former editor of Melbourne tabloid The Herald Sun, the mere mention of Denton’s name in one of the empire’s papers was enough to earn the ire of Lachlan, after the talk show host took a hard stance against News Limited in the Super League wars of the 1990s.
Also chucking in a few quid - $1000 - to the Crikey cause is former News Limited chief executive Kim Williams, whose efforts to change the company’s brutal culture came to a crashing halt - just 20 months into his tenure - after he made powerful internal enemies including Lachlan himself as well as Paul Whittaker - then the editor of the Daily Telegraph - and Chris Mitchell, who was still calling the shots at The Australian.
CBD brought word on Monday that former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull, who both struggle to keep their issues with the Murdochs to themselves, had each contributed $5000 to the legal fund.
We can’t wait to see who pays up next.
Pickled Tink
Ironic was the only way to describe North Sydney teal independent MP Kylea Tink’s disclosure that she owned shares in two fossil fuel companies – Viva Energy and Beach Energy.
The Climate 200-backed MP, who went to the election on a platform of reducing emissions 60 per cent by 2030, told this masthead she’d bought shares in companies “where she felt shareholder activism may be a way to both better understand the entities involved and potentially exert pressure from within to drive reform”.
So what, exactly, did Tink’s shareholder activism entail? Well Viva Energy told Tink’s local rag The North Sydney Sun their board had no contact with Tink, and that she hadn’t asked any questions at their AGM.
A Beach Energy spokesperson told us they didn’t disclose private interactions with their shareholders, and directed us to their AGMs. Surprise, surprise, no questions from Tink at last year’s meeting either.
Change from within, indeed.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.