By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
Budget day and the manure is flying at state parliament. Or more accurately, the manure in this case was wrapped in a giftbox and placed outside the parliamentary office of Premier Jacinta Allan.
You couldn’t make it up. And the people allegedly responsible for this vile defecatory deed?
Liberal MP Bev McArthur (right) outside the premier’s office on Tuesday.
Not some green/left/pinko/anarchist collective, but the decidedly more conservative Liberal Party MPs Bev McArthur, Legislative Council member for Western Victoria Region, and Nicole Werner, lower house member for Warrandyte.
All this on a day when farmers and firefighters came to town from around the state to rage against the Labor government’s emergency services levy.
The protest box.
Leader of the House Mary-Anne Thomas wasn’t having any of it. She leapt into action with a letter to parliament’s speaker and president, accusing McArthur and Werner of contravening parliamentary standards.
She wants the pair referred to the privileges committee for an alleged breach. No laughing matter, Thomas believes. She accuses McArthur and Werner of escorting a member of the public into a passholder area “to leave an offensive prop outside the sliding doors of the premier’s office”.
The MPs were accompanied by a staff member who took photos, including pics of a staffer in the premier’s office who, Thomas said, was left feeling unsafe.
And Thomas accused McArthur of smuggling the ahem, organic matter, into parliament.
The brown box, with a clear cellophane window, reveals a glimpse of a questionable, and sizeable, brown nugget nestling in pink tissue paper and tied up with pink string. It was accompanied by a neatly written message: “Dearest Jacinta, I have considered your levy and here’s my feedback, it’s bullshit.” The message was signed “Love, Brutus and family.”
So many questions about this incident still to work their way through the system.
McArthur was unapologetic for what she described as a “harmless stunt”, saying the Labor reaction suggested they “don’t get out of Melbourne much”.
“If we are looking for a serious point here, it’s the fact that the only way regional Victorians can get a message through to Labor politicians is by delivering a bullshit cake direct to their door,” she said.
Unexpected emoji poops up in court
Friday was a signature day in the life of the Federal Court. Judges Nye Perram, Anna Katzmann and Geoffrey Kennett unanimously dismissed an appeal brought by former special forces soldier Ben Roberts-Smith, who failed to overturn a landmark ruling that he had, on the balance of probabilities, committed war crimes in Afghanistan.
Roberts-Smith, who had previously lost his defamation case against The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, also failed in his bid to get his appeal reopened after a “secret recording” about the case involving our reporter Nick McKenzie came to light. The court dismissed his application, creating an apparent legal precedent – the first use of a poo emoji in a Federal Court judgment, according to our legal experts. Our questions to the court elicited this response:
“Paragraph 85 of the Roberts-Smith v Fairfax Publications Pty Limited (Reopening Application) judgment does include the emoji referred to below. The full judgment is published and can be viewed on our website,” a media officer told CBD. “The Court will not provide further comment on the contents of the reasons for judgment.”
Quite proper. The history-making reference comes from a text exchange between the soldier’s then wife, Emma Roberts (they later split) and her friend, Danielle Scott, discussing the impact of a letter from the Australian Federal Police to Roberts-Smith.
The judgment states: “After Ms Scott responds ‘Well there’s the drama he needs’, Ms Roberts observes ‘Yep straight to the toilet to [poo emoji]’.”
Apologies, but it is beyond this masthead’s technology to reproduce the relevant emoji here.
But as the judgment makes clear: “This is not a description of a privileged communication obtained by secretly logging on to an email account.”
Luck of the Don
Nobody associated with the Liberal Party has had much luck of late – except former NSW arts minister and moderate Liberal powerbroker Don Harwin, who’s had a recent lottery win. Rumours were swirling this week about Teflon Don (as he’s known, for reasons we will shortly explain) making himself fabulously wealthy through sheer good fortune.
But Harwin informed CBD that talk of his big jackpot was overblown, and he’d won only a minor prize that would “barely pay my Woolies shop”.
Still, in this economy, we’d take it. And it continues a run of improbably good fortune for Harwin. He quit then NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian’s ministry after allegedly dodging COVID restrictions in 2020 by skipping town for his Central Coast holiday home.
Winners are grinners, eh, Don Harwin? Credit: Sam Mooy
But when the $1000 fine was dropped, Harwin was welcomed back into cabinet. After quitting parliamentary politics, he was elected NSW Liberal president last year – by a single vote, leading some party conservatives to threaten their very own January 6 (OK, we made that bit up, but we wouldn’t put it past them).
Then, when the party disastrously forgot to register dozens of candidates for local government elections last year, it was state director Richard Shields who took the initial fall, while Harwin stayed on until the Liberal federal executive intervened and took control of the division.
He’s since managed to land a role on the board of the National Maritime Museum, thanks to the bipartisan generosity of the Albanese government. With a run like that, we’d be buying lottery tickets too.
Can’t keep away
The Mooch is coming back. Former Wall Street wolflet Anthony Scaramucci, who’s built a lucrative brand out of lasting just 11 days as Donald Trump’s White House communications director before getting the “you’re fired” treatment, is returning to these shores.
The Mooch, who’s evolved into an avowed Trump hater and spent much of last year adamant that Kamala Harris would win the presidential election, is now feted on the international speakers’ circuit for his political insights.
That grift will again bring him to Australia, where he’s set to headline Sohn Hearts & Minds, a talkfest for bankers and finance bros at the Sydney Opera House this November. A step-up from the superannuation conference in Newcastle that Scaramucci spoke at last September.
CBD reported last year that the Mooch enjoyed a lucrative dinner with Labor powerbrokers, politicians and superannuation industry executives in Sydney after his speech who were no doubt clamouring for some wisdom on the state of the presidential race. With his former boss now firmly ensconced once more in the White House, there’s no doubt the Mooch will again be in high demand.
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