By Noel Towell and Kishor Napier-Raman
Craig Kelly, a former Liberal MP of some repute and who went on to become Clive Palmer’s right-hand man at the mining billionaire’s United Australia Party, confirmed this week that he’d defected – again – this time to One Nation to become Pauline Hanson’s federal campaign director.
“Honoured to follow Pauline Hanson into battle,” Kelly wrote on social media site X, beside a terrifying AI-generated image of Hanson atop a horse and brandishing a sword.
Craig Kelly has jumped aboard Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party as campaign director.Credit: John Shakespeare
It can be slim pickings, talent wise, when you’re operating on the fringes of mainstream politics.
But Kelly’s move has left Palmer’s outfit without a national director, in the week of perhaps the party’s greatest triumph, when its $110 million senator, Ralph Babet, finally managed to convince the Liberals and independent David Pocock to set up a parliamentary inquiry into the, ahem, notion that COVID vaccines may have killed tens of thousands of Australians.
The image Kelly posted to announce his defection to One Nation.Credit: Twitter
Palmer doesn’t seem fazed by all of this. When asked about Kelly’s departure and possible replacements, his people provided us with a fairly vanilla statement.
“We wish Mr Kelly all the best in his future endeavours. He was a valued contributor who showed political courage at a time when it was lacking,” they said. We reckon Palmer has got a few millions more to burn on the next election.
SAM AND THE CITY
Human headline Derryn Hinch’s confirmation this week that he will indeed run for lord mayor of Melbourne in the city’s election in October got us thinking. These contests can be rather dull without a novelty candidate – we try to use the term “celebrity” sparingly here at CBD.
Indeed, the last run-out in 2020 was a bit of a snooze, although the candidacy – on a sort of unofficial Liberal ticket – of city nightclub owner Nick Russian did generate a flicker of fun, not least with Russian’s wife, ballerina-turned influencer Rozalia Russian keeping busy on the socials.
The time before that, former footballer-turned-TV controversialist Sam Newman looked set to bring his unique, well, whatever-you-want-to-call-it, to the race for city hall, but had to withdraw after an overseas assignment for Channel Nine clashed with the official candidates’ declarations.
So, will either of these lads be on the ballot this year, or will we be forced to rely on Hinch’s campaign for the colour?
Nick Russian told us that he’s too busy working right now to be thinking about running for mayor and as for Newman, well, despite having been “approached” to consider a run, it turns out that the job is not big enough for the big man.
“I’m not sure what authority the lord has, rather than being just a titular head, a figurehead,” Newman told us. “Say if it was about safety, or fairness or graffiti or bike lanes or traffic or homelessness, you might have good ideas, but if you had no authority to implement any of those ideas without a consensus or a quorum of people backing you, you become irrelevant.”
Take that, Sally Capp.
CRYING WOLF
Look, if you’ve been plotting an investment strategy using tips from Instagram influencers, you’re probably beyond our help.
But we have to try – it’s our job – and the latest instalment in the sorry tale of Tyson Scholz, the online stock trading “educator” with a taste for Ferrari, Bugatti and Rolls-Royce cars, high-end champagne, private jets and selfies in exotic locations, might be taken as a word to the wise.
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has been very much on Scholz’s case for a few years now, with the commission convincing the Federal Court in late 2022 that the Gold Coast native’s social media spruiking amounted to running a financial services business without a licence – which Scholz denied – followed a few months later by the court ordering a permanent cease and desist.
But these actions by the consumer’s enforcer don’t come cheap, and ASIC also secured an order against the “ASX Wolf” – as Scholz calls himself to his 116,000 Insta followers – for $426,000 plus change, thank you very much.
Tyson Scholz posted this image from Greece in mid-2022.Credit: Instagram
But, surprisingly for a bloke who seems to have access to a world of luxury most of us could only dream of, he didn’t pay and ASIC has now secured a “sequestration order” against Scholz, rendering him bankrupt.
But it looks like the newly declared bankrupt has taken the news in his stride, posting footage of himself driving a Rolls-Royce Ghost – which retails for more than $600,000 – around Dubai on Wednesday like a man without a care in the world.
We’re trying to get hold of the Wolf, who didn’t lodge a defence in the bankruptcy matter, for a chat – so far without success.
So for now, we’ll file this one as another brutal lesson in what happens when Instagram’s fantasy world collides with real life.
Tyson Scholz in one of his Instagram posts.Credit: Instagram
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