It takes endurance to be a barrister – the bar exam, sleepless nights, spending hours on your feet trying to woo the presiding judge. But a criminal lawyer’s constitution was taken to the next level when a baseball bat-toting thug broke his arm in a car park adjacent to the Sunshine Magistrates’ Court last week in a random attack.
The kicker? After having his left arm patched up by paramedics, Smurthwaite marched into court to represent a client. That’s despite ambos advising against it.
Melbourne barrister Tim Smurthwaite underwent surgery on Saturday after a random attack.
When we phoned him to check if the story was the whole truth and nothing but – which it is – it was clear the barrister’s arm may be broken, but his funny bone was not. Panadol is an amazing thing, Smurthwaite joked.
“They wanted to take me to hospital,” Smurthwaite told CBD. “But this bloke’s liberty was at stake. It’s inconvenient and I’m in a bit of pain, but I can work.”
The incident, over which no one has yet been charged, occurred last Wednesday, and the barrister was also back in court defending clients on Friday. It was only on Saturday that Smurthwaite went under the surgeon’s knife to have a plate inserted into his arm. All part of a plan to heal his “classic defence” injuries. A police statement will be given in due course.
So did the client succeed in his bail application? Yes.
Not all superheroes wear capes. Some of them wear long black robes.
Start your engines
For weeks, everyone assumed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would make the trip to Yarralumla on Sunday to fire the starting gun for a federal election on April 12. But ex-tropical cyclone Alfred, which wreaked havoc on south-east Queensland and northern NSW at the weekend, had other ideas.
Most Australians will only start tuning into the election in the coming months. But Labor and the Coalition have been ready, and in campaign mode, for weeks now.
Sources from both parties told CBD their teams have been ready since January 26 (the unofficial beginning of the year) for Albo to kick off the campaign. We hear it was a very short Christmas break for most Labor staff.
Labor’s national secretary, Paul Erickson.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Labor’s campaign operation will once again be based in Surry Hills in inner Sydney. Staff have been working from there for weeks.
The Liberals, meanwhile, are operating out of Parramatta, after having had their HQ in Brisbane for the past two federal campaigns. Dutton’s narrow potential path to The Lodge runs through the suburbs, making western Sydney an obvious choice for a home base.
Labor’s baby-faced national secretary, Paul Erickson, was the toast of the True Believers after masterminding the party’s return to government in 2022 and will once again be campaign chief. Adam Gartrell, formerly a political reporter with this masthead and now deputy chief of staff to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, will be in charge of media.
On the Coalition side, the campaign will be led by Liberal federal director Andrew Hirst and his Nationals counterpart, Lincoln Folo.
Liberal federal director Andrew Hirst. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Media will once again be run by ex-Michaelia Cash staffer Guy Creighton, currently based in London as an executive with digital marketing firm Topham Guerin, the Kiwi whizzkids who helped the 2019 Scott Morrison election miracle, and who are also involved in Dutton’s campaign.
The Liberals have also drafted a few old hands into the mix – former junior minister Jamie Briggs (sacked from the frontbench after an “incident” in Hong Kong), deputy federal director Simon Berger and Nigel Blunden, a former Joe Hockey staffer who later did communications for Lieutenant General John “J.J.” Frewin, the army guy who ran Morrison’s COVID-19 taskforce.
October surprise
The diaries of Australia’s most powerful ministers were released under freedom-of-information laws last week courtesy of our friends over at Crikey.
Naturally, we took a look at Albanese’s schedule for October. There was a meeting with ex-treasurer and ambassador to the US Joe Hockey, then in high demand for his punditry on the upcoming American election. Right before heading off to the ASEAN summit in Laos, Albo met his rival Peter Dutton twice in a single day.
But we’re more intrigued by a series of meetings held later in the month at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices in Sydney. Days after King Charles’ visit, Albanese and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland met with local royalty – rugby league chair Peter V’landys and NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo. Right after that, they were on the blower with AFL boss Andrew Dillon.
Unsurprisingly, we hear the meetings were part of the government’s consultation process on reforms to gambling advertising. It’s no secret that the AFL and NRL have been lobbying the government hard behind the scenes to neuter any restrictions on gambling advertising.
So far, the codes are winning. Weeks after their meeting with the government, Rowland’s office told a gambling campaigner the government didn’t have a timeline for introducing reforms, the push for which was led by late Labor MP Peta Murphy. By January, this masthead reported that those changes would be shelved until after the election.
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