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 over the weekend, had other ideas.
Most Australians will start tuning into the election only over coming months, but Labor and the Coalition have been ready and in campaign mode for weeks.
Labor national secretary Paul Erickson during Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s National Press Club address earlier this year. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
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 campaign operation will again be based in inner-city Surry Hills. Staff have been working from there for weeks.
The Liberals, meanwhile, are operating out of Parramatta after having their HQ in Brisbane for the past two federal campaigns. Dutton’s narrow path to The Lodge runs through the suburbs, making western Sydney an obvious choice for home base.
Labor’s baby-faced national secretary, Paul Erickson, was 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. Media will 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 miracle and who are also involved in Dutton’s campaign.
The Liberals have also drafted a few old hands in – 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 “JJ” Frewin, the army guy who ran Morrison’s COVID-19 taskforce.
Speak, man
Poor Mark Speakman. The low-profile NSW opposition leader was pilloried after his recent fundraiser for the Port Macquarie by-election was a major flop, failing to draw in the big-money donors, who’d much rather hang out with Peter Dutton at Justin Hemmes’ Vaucluse mansion.
NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman.Credit: Kate Geraghty
But Liberal frontbencher Mark Coure has no such problems. The Oatley MP drew a packed crowd of around 250 at his belated Chinese New Year banquet at Zilver, in Westfield Chatswood, where Speakman was guest of honour. It ain’t quite The Hermitage, but it did have lazy susans and succulent Chinese meals, traditionally NSW Labor-coded fare.
The Liberal Party’s wannabe member for the federal seat of Bradfield, Gisele Kapterian, also worked the room.
Coure, we hear, is one of a few state Libs with leadership aspirations. We also hear he’s topping the fundraising leaderboard among his colleagues.
As for Speakman, well, the opposition leader’s voice went mid-speech. That’ll do wonders for his confidence.
October surprise
The diaries of Australia’s most powerful ministers have been released under Freedom of Information courtesy of our friends at Crikey.
Rugby league chairman Peter V’landys.Credit: Kate Geraghty
Naturally, we took a look at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s schedule for October. There was a meeting with ex-treasurer and US ambassador Joe Hockey, then in high demand for his punditry on the upcoming US 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 III’s visit, Albanese and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland met with local royalty – NRL chair Peter V’landys and the league’s 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 were led by late Labor MP Peta Murphy. By January, this masthead reported that those reforms would be shelved until after the election.
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