By Kishor Napier-Raman and Noel Towell
After some pain-free months, veteran broadcaster Alan Jones is sadly back in hospital, recovering from another round of back surgery.
The former 2GB host is expected to remain at St Vincent’s for another month after going under the knife on Tuesday. Those close to him said he was feeling better but would be out of action for the rest of the year.
The 81-year-old spent much of the early part of 2022 on the operating table – 28 hours over four procedures – for “unconscionable” nerve pain, which returned in recent weeks.
Those close to Alan Jones said he was feeling better but would be out of action for the rest of the year.Credit: Janie Barrett
“I was hanging on to the bed screaming, they could have heard me at the South Pole,” Jones told the Herald in April.
These days, Jones streams his own nightly program from a studio in Chippendale through Australian Digital Holdings, aided by the likes of conservative pundit Nick Cater.
We’re told Jones will be back “on air” early next year after the Gold Coast’s Magic Millions.
Keeping out the riff-raff
Macleay Regis, a grand old art deco apartment block in Potts Point, is an exclusive kind of place.
Commissioned by Woolworths co-founder Harold “Percy” Christmas in 1939, as Sydney’s answer to Manhattan’s Rockefeller building, it’s maintained a rarefied air of antiquated privilege ever since.
Gretel Packer owns the penthouse, while famed yachtsman and scion of the Hardy winemaking family Sir James Hardy is also a resident. Until recently, so were actors David Wenham and Craig McLachlan.
But if the powers that be get their way, the address could get even more exclusive. Unlike a normal apartment block, Macleay Regis uses an obscure system of company title where owners buy shares in the building corresponding to their apartment, with a board of directors pulling the strings.
The board, made up of less illustrious residents, seems determined to keep the riff-raff away. Updated guidelines issued last month outlined a new “shareholder approval process” whereby any prospective residents would need to attend an in-person interview with the board and provide character references and financial statements.
And before next week’s annual general meeting, the board is trying to crack down on that most unsavoury class – renters.
The rules on renting are strict enough – owners must live in their apartment for two years, and are then limited to leasing their property for four years.
The board says that’s to “prevent disputes, damage to the building fabric and anti-social behaviour” supposedly associated with high turnover from changing tenancies.
But under a proposed special resolution, directors would be able to seek a court order enforcing compliance against owners breaching the renting rules. If that fails, the board can forfeit the shareholders’ shares (in other words, evict them).
According to the October report, most shareholders back the special resolution, which requires a 75 per cent majority at next week’s meeting to get up.
But at least one resident, who didn’t wish to be named, felt the mood was different.
“Many shareholders think this is draconian, unpleasant and unnecessary,” they told CBD.
Palmer’s people
Clive Palmer is taking the name of his United Australia Party very literally, deploying a nationwide approach to financing the UAP’s (long) shot at electoral glory in Victoria this month.
Credit: Shakespeare
With the state’s strict campaign finance laws proving a barrier to Clive’s preferred electoral game plan – blow $100 million, get one bloke elected – the billionaire’s friends and family are doing what they can.
We brought word this week that Palmer’s international fugitive nephew Clive Mensink – last seen in Bulgaria hiding from the investigation into the collapse of Palmer’s Queensland Nickel – had chipped in a few grand.
Now it turns out Mensink’s son Ryan Mensink has chucked in the maximum amount allowed, $4320, with Ryan’s wife Amanda Schunemann matching her husband’s effort dollar for dollar.
Not to be outdone, Clive’s wife Anna Palmer has donated $4320, as has Chrome Advertising, the lucky Brisbane agency that got to book all that media for the federal campaign.
James McDonald, the UAP national secretary who had a memorable day in court when Universal Music successfully sued the party for copyright breach over the use of the Twisted Sister anthem We’re not gonna take it in its Palmer-composed 2019 federal campaign jingle, is also on the donor list for $4320.
Andrew Crook, Palmer’s Gold Coast-based spinner-in-chief, who managed 191 primary votes in the 2020 Queensland election effort with the slogan “an honest Crook for George Street”, is helping out his Victorian brethren with $4000.
Also chipping in, to the tune of that lucky number $4320, is Suellen Wrightson, who stood for the UAP in Tony Abbott’s old seat of Warringah in 2019, and ran unsuccessfully for the Senate at the May election.
That’s why CBD loves this crew; they never let geography stand in their way.
Out the Dore
When The Australian’s editor-in-chief Chris Dore abruptly resigned on Wednesday, News Corp did little to stop a million conspiracy theories coursing through the small, bitchy world that is the local media.
A note to staff from the company’s executive chairman, Michael Miller, alluded to Dore’s “personal health issues,” and stressed the editor, who’d only just returned from a trip to the United States, would also be undergoing surgery this week.
Beyond wishing Dore the best, it was a dry statement that provided little praise for the departing editor, instead outlining the number of roles he’d held during a 31-year stint at the empire, and noting Miller had asked Michelle Gunn to continue editing the paper.
The Australian didn’t publicly acknowledge the change until a non-bylined Wednesday evening news story went up, a good hour after this masthead broke the news.
It’s no surprise then that staff at the paper’s Holt St, Surry Hills headquarters were shocked and blindsided – such announcements at News Corp are usually dropped on a Friday afternoon and tend to strike a far jollier tone. This all felt a little quiet, abrupt and poorly stage-managed.
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