Yarra councillor Stephen Jolly was riding high last December. The longtime left-wing councillor had just been elected mayor after his Yarra For All alliance stormed to a commanding position in council elections, reducing the Greens to just two councillors in their former stronghold. That’s got to hurt.
Basking in the glow of victory, the Jolly band of independent councillors decided to release a newsletter announcing their grand plans.
Yarra Mayor Stephen JollyCredit: Justin McManus
Pegged as a means to keep constituents regularly informed, the pamphlet flagged changes within the council, including two pedestrian crossings that would be permanently lit and a bike lane on Elizabeth Street in North Richmond that would be altered.
But alarm bells rang immediately, and Yarra Council chief executive Sue Wilkinson fired off an email headlined “We need to talk about this urgently”, internal communications recently revealed through freedom of information laws, and seen by CBD, show.
The problem? As a lot of the grand plans in the newsletter hadn’t been passed by the council, Wilkinson thought the mailout indicated that the council meeting process was predetermined. She also didn’t like the “commentary on operational matters” and “potential misuse of position”.
Wilkinson’s initial assessment was that the leaflet breached confidentiality provisions, which could amount to serious misconduct.
“I have only had a quick look … but my initial view is that there are at least three breaches of … confidentiality,” Wilkinson messaged Jolly on December 13. “The bulletin has multiple problems and will really put council at risk.”
Wilkinson directed Jolly to delete the post, and he complied.
After Jolly queried what the issues were, a meeting was held the following week, with a 19-page PowerPoint presentation aptly titled “Integrity and Good Governance”. You’d think that would be a prerequisite for the job.
It stated that “councillors need to transition quickly from candidate to councillor”.
The newsletter was pulped, and a reworked version, paid for by the alliance and not council funds, was eventually sent out.
“We were way too enthusiastic,” Jolly told CBD this week, before pointing out that all the plans foreshadowed in the newsletter were being implemented.
Mushroom boost
RecipeTin Eats founder Nagi Maehashi was adamant.
“I have nothing to say and I won’t be talking to anyone,” the popular cook and Good Food contributor told her 2.5 million Instagram followers after the guilty verdicts for Erin Patterson, who cooked her four lunch guests a deadly beef Wellington at home in Leongatha, killing three of them.
Nagi Maehashi’s beef Wellington became the centrepiece in the recent mushroom trial.Credit: James Brickwood
Patterson, as it happens, sourced a beef Wellington recipe from Maehashi’s cookbook Dinner.
Recipe TinEats founder Nagi Maehashi posts how the mushroom murder trial boosted sales.Credit: Instagram
Maehashi pleaded for privacy after copping a media deluge asking how she felt about her recipe being adapted for Patterson’s murderous meal.
“It is of course upsetting to learn that one of my recipes – possibly the one I’ve spent more hours perfecting than any other – [and] something I created to bring joy and happiness, is entangled in a tragic situation,” Maehashi posted after the verdict this month.
And that, we thought, was that.
However, Maehashi revisited the topic this week, posting again.
Dinner and its successor Tonight are publishing phenomena: in 2024 Tonight sold 299,000 copies, while Dinner – published in 2022 – sold 176,000.
The cook has maintained a vow of silence on her recipe, until suddenly on Tuesday night noting the impact of the trial publicity on Amazon sales: “When the first one overtakes the 2nd one because of [a series of mushroom emojis] and you don’t know how to react.”
Fascinated, we reached out to the cook to learn more, but by then normal service was resumed, and we didn’t hear back.
Wheeling in the policy old guard
Despite leading a minuscule opposition, Liberal leader Sussan Ley has made a solid start on the media front, defining herself with big appearances in Women’s Weekly and 60 Minutes, a contrast to Peter Dutton’s habit of cloistering himself on Sky News After Dark.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley facing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during question time on Wednesday. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Now, Ley has to figure out what a divided and diminished opposition actually stands for. To help on that front, she has drafted in Liberal federal executive member Gerry Wheeler as director of policy.
Many lifetimes ago, Wheeler was a well-known staffer in the Howard government. He wanted to become a Liberal senator for the ACT in 2002, even producing a glossy brochure and video production for the preselectors, who were unmoved by a push that was well ahead of its time.
According to a contemporaneous article in this masthead, Wheeler had a few interesting policy ideas of his own during his stint in the Young Liberals, including the right for all adults to bear arms (including automatic weapons), privatising the ABC, opposing sanctions against apartheid South Africa and condemning the AIDS Council for not blaming gay people for the spread of the disease.
But CBD hears Wheeler has mellowed with age, and has in recent times been a moderating force against the hard right in ACT Liberal circles.
We asked Ley’s office, and a spokesman for the opposition leader replied: “The article references policies drawn from student politics from over 30 years ago and does not reflect views held by Mr Wheeler in any way since that time.”
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