CBD recently brought word of former PM Scott Morrison hobnobbing with distant royals at the red carpet gala opening of Opera Australia’s harbourside production of Madama Butterfly.
How good is culture? Credit: John Shakespeare
While Morrison seems more a footy guy than an opera buff, who could possibly say no when your tickets and travel are covered?
Updates to the backbencher’s register of interests show Morrison attended courtesy of Opera Australia, with an organisation called the International Foundation for Arts and Culture (IFAC) covering a car to and from Mrs Macquaries Point.
That foundation was founded by Haruhisa Handa, the wealthy philanthropist, wannabe opera singer and ballet dancer, whose name has adorned Opera Australia’s Sydney Harbour extravaganza for more than a decade now.
Both Handa and the foundation are patrons in chief of Opera Australia, and the company’s former artistic director Lyndon Terracini, who resigned last year, sits on the IFAC board.
A true Renaissance man, Handa has a more eccentric side, as a prodigious author of self-help books, and the founder of a quirky Japanese sect known as World Mate, which under a previous iteration, settled tax evasion and sexual harassment cases in the 1990s.
It’s not the first time the former PM has been in his orbit. The businessman hosted Morrison’s attendance at a gathering of conservative former leaders including British prime minister David Cameron last July, which kept the ex-PM away from the first sittings of the new parliament.
Despite once professing a disinterest in politicians, Handa has grown close to others in Australia. Tony Abbott is a patron of one of his many other initiatives, the International Sports Promotion Society.
Meanwhile, one of the Morrison government’s final acts was to award Handa an Order of Australia. Morrison’s people didn’t return our comment requests.
Thorpe talks
Ever since an infamous 3am meltdown outside a Melbourne strip club last week, independent senator Lidia Thorpe has done her best to ghost the media.
On Tuesday, fed up with what she called “lies and disinformation” spread about her, Thorpe sat down for an hour-long tell all with self-described anti-fascist YouTuber Tom Tanuki, to discuss the many incidents that just seem to keep on dogging her.
Thorpe didn’t seem fussed that Maxine’s, the adult joint in question, had banned her for life, telling Tanuki she’s been flooded with invitations from other strip clubs.
“I certainly won’t be celebrating my 50th at a strip club,” Thorpe said.
On the incident in question, Thorpe told Tanuki she hadn’t really been itching to make the big night with her girlfriends quite so fiery.
“It’s not like we go out and talk about politics and talk about stolen land all night.”
But when a middle-aged white man allegedly started verbally abusing her, Thorpe said she hit back, but felt like she’d “walked into a trap” when more people arrived to film the confrontation as it spilled onto the streets.
“When I said that person had a little dick, it was for the reason that you waited for us to walk out of the door, and then, you had all your mates around me, and then you had a go at me,” Thorpe said. “Don’t call yourself a man and a big shot standing outside the door”.
And despite PM Anthony Albanese’s slightly off-colour suggestion last week that Thorpe get help, the senator said plenty of parliamentarians could do with getting their mental health in order.
“I’ve had so much white guilt in that place that I think that there does need to be some mental health assessment of many politicians.”
Scam raises the Barr
We never took ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr for much of a crypto guy. Nor a disseminator of life advice, except for when it came to telling Canberrans to stay at home during the town’s lockdowns.
But a series of befuddling Anzac Day tweets suggested otherwise.
“Live fully. Laugh heartily. Love deeply. For this life is not a trial run,” came the wholesome message from Barr on Tuesday morning.
In keeping with an updated bio, which referred to Barr as a “swing/day trading mentor,” the chief minister also announced an exciting new venture.
“Any crypto whale/Trader/Investor Here? Send a DM let’s work together on our new incoming digital marketing project,” he tweeted.
And while those rogue outbursts were interspersed with routine content about the ACT’s multicultural festival, Barr’s people were quick to confirm that the chief minister, who runs his own Twitter account, had been hacked.
By Tuesday afternoon, Twitter had managed to lock the hackers out, with the weird stuff mostly gone. But the internet never forgets.
Wreathgate blooms again
Days after Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel missed an RSL ANZAC Day ceremony, the great mystery that is Wreathgate remains unresolved, with tit-for-tat allegations over whether her predecessor Tim Wilson or a representative of Daniel pinched and subsequently laid a wreath ongoing.
While the former Liberal MP maintains Daniel should have attended the RSL on Sunday afternoon, her diary tells another story.
After attending a fundraiser on Saturday night, Daniel dropped her son off for his Sunday shift at the club that morning, with the pair leaving Wye River between 3pm and 4pm and getting back into the city around 6pm.
While Daniel’s office says she’s attending five other ANZAC events, it’s not the first time Wilson has been on her case about her whereabouts. She previously missed two Australia Day events in her electorate, but attended others.
But, sources tell CBD, at least one councillor has had it with Wilson using the council’s time to quiz them on Daniel’s attendance record, describing it as “childish” conduct that was “annoying everyone”.
“Which question do they dislike?” Wilson told CBD, in response to the councillor’s comment. “The one about how Bayside lost $100 million of federal funding at the election? The one about how Zoe boycotted Australia Day citizenship ceremonies?”
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correction
An earlier version of CBD raised the question of whether Scott Morrison’s recent attendance at Madama Butterfly opening night, courtesy of Opera Australia and the International Foundation for Arts and Culture, founded by Haruhisa Handa, was related to Handa being given an Order of Australia when Morrison was Prime Minister. We have now been assured this was not the case and we apologise.