By Gemma Grant and Kishor Napier-Raman
Amid the news hurricane, the relatively recent debacle surrounding the search for Victoria’s new top cop feels a bit like a distant memory. But CBD most certainly remembers the game of hot potato in the months leading up to the hiring of New Zealander Mike Bush.
For a while, the then acting chief commissioner, Rick Nugent, was thought to be the frontrunner in the search, before bowing out of the race during the final sprint.
Sticking point: Former acting police chief commissioner Rick Nugent.Credit: Wayne Taylor
Internal documents released under freedom-of-information laws and seen by CBD reveal quite the back and forth in the wording of Nugent’s withdrawal from consideration
The names were redacted from the documents so we can’t tell you exactly who was making suggestions, but it’s clear one sticking point was how much recognition he should give the Victorian government.
A proposed public statement put forward behind the scenes the day before his news was made public was pretty direct.
“I will be advising the state government that I will remain in the role for as long as needed,” it read.
An edited release was circulated at 6.17am the following morning, yes the morning the news would break, omitting any reference to the government at all.
Just 11 minutes later, Nugent’s inbox pinged with an updated statement to endorse, complete with a new sentence added in bold.
“I will work with government as to how long I remain in the role of Acting Chief Commissioner,” the line said.
Much more collaborative, we think. That line was the version that made the cut and was included in a memo sent to media outlets soon after. But in an all-staff email sent out to his police colleagues that very morning? No mention of the state government at all. How interesting.
Could that potentially be related to the recent IBAC investigation in which Nugent and Premier Jacinta Allan were accused by dumped deputy Neil Paterson of conspiring to oust him and former chief commissioner Shane Patton?
CBD isn’t sure. But we hope for the force’s sake that that’s all been cleared up. The shiny new commissioner is set to step into the top cop role on Friday. Welcome, Mike! We wish you all the best.
Katharine Murphy exits Albanese’s office
As sure as death and taxes is the conga line of ministerial staffers leaving their jobs in politics after an election.
The highest-profile of those departures this time around is Anthony Albanese’s press secretary Katharine Murphy, who CBD can report is moving on from the prime minister’s office after just 18 months in the role, and was busy saying her farewells to the press gallery on Wednesday morning.
Katharine Murphy on the set of the ABC’s Insiders in 2017, when she was Guardian Australia’s political editor.Credit: Meredith O’Shea
“Murpharoo,” as she’s affectionately known, left her role as Guardian Australia’s political editor to join the Prime Minister’s Office in January last year, in a move that was mocked by then opposition leader Peter Dutton during one of his numerous broadsides against the press gallery.
“I am genuinely shocked to see Murpharoo take up a spot to now be officially running lines for Labor,” Dutton quipped, before taking a swing at this masthead’s then chief political correspondent, David Crowe.
Murphy was replaced at The Guardian by veteran journalist Karen Middleton, beginning a period of instability in the news outlet’s Canberra bureau. Reporters Dan Hurst, Amy Remeikis and Paul Karp, along with photographer Mike Bowers, all left the bureau in quick succession.
Middleton and Karp would both make claims of workplace misconduct against each other, before the political editor formally left in March, after taking several months of medical leave.
Karp, who joined our stablemate The Australian Financial Review, said he “left with my head held high and with a clean record” in a farewell speech to colleagues. Middleton hasn’t commented, and CBD’s not taking sides.
That leaves the influential role of political editor very much up for grabs. CBD hears recruitment has been put on hold while The Guardian’s forever editor, Lenore Taylor, is in Europe. Could Murphy return to the fold? We sought comment from her and The Guardian but didn’t hear back.
There is precedent for Murphy making a comeback. Anne Davies, the outlet’s Gold Walkley-winning former investigations editor, quit to work as a spinner for teal MP Sophie Scamps in 2023, but returned to The Guardian last year and is filing from NSW parliament.
But CBD hears Murphy is likely to take a bit of a breather to spend some quality time with husband Mark Davis, a former journalist and senior Labor staffer who is retiring from the game.
For Australia’s sake, we hope Murphy’s latest departure doesn’t trigger a meltdown in the PMO. Not likely, given Albo has eight more spinners left to pick up the slack.
Clive Palmer actually wins a court case
Clive Palmer is well known in this column for his tally of legal losses, including five before the High Court.
But this month, a once-in-a-blue-moon event came around, as Palmer’s Mineralogy was finally awarded legal costs following an epic dispute with Chinese conglomerate CITIC over the $20 billion Sino Iron project in Western Australia.
And by epic, we mean the original proceedings ran between 2013 and 2017, followed by a 10-day trial and a rejected High Court appeal in a matter compared by a judge to Shakespeare’s Macbeth. With less bloodshed.
Blue moon … Clive Palmer had a rare legal win.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The fiendishly complex matter brought a rare victory for Palmer’s company, which was awarded hundreds of millions in relief.
But then, for reasons never explained by either side, the parties refused to work out the legal costs owed to Mineralogy. Primary judge Kenneth Martin, who’d retired by the time the parties first held a mediation in 2023, described both sides as gripped by “sustained inertia”.
Justice Michael Lundberg wasn’t thrilled about having to pick up the case years later, chastising the parties for an “extraordinary and excessive” delay he suggested might break some kind of record for commercial litigation in Australia.
Palmer’s company was ultimately awarded costs. But Mineralogy’s claim that CITIC pay its costs on an indemnity basis, allowing the company to effectively recoup all its squillions in legal fees, was rejected by the judge, who pointed to both parties’ role in the “grossly excessive” delay.
This didn’t stop Palmer claiming victory.
“This is another clear win for Mineralogy. Justice has again been served and the truth continues to prevail,” he said in a statement.
With Clive’s courtroom record, you take the wins whenever you can.
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