By Noel Towell and Kishor Napier-Raman
We’ll set sail this morning on the usually tranquil waters of the Mornington Yacht Club, which has drifted into stormy seas amid unhappiness over “misogynistic and offensive” boat names painted on vessels parked at the club’s marina.
A complaint about boats called “Himalayan Women” – geddit? – and “Screaming Seamen” has prompted the club to have a quiet word with some of its younger members, and CBD understands that the lad who thought it was funny to call his boat “Big Black Tiller” agreed to call it something else instead.
Paul Dynes (inset) and the yacht Himalayan Women.
Yacht club spokesman Peter Davey told us that the club issued a polite warning to its yachties, asking that boat names, which have a strong tradition of double entendres, be considered carefully and that they do not denigrate anyone “on the basis of gender or ethnicity”.
“We’re looking at developing a code of conduct when it comes to boat names, so if there’s any kind of obvious double meaning ... we can point to the rules and say no, we can’t accept that name,” Davey said.
“We just have to; it’s just the way things are today.”
But as for “Himalayan Women”, the committee conducted a snap survey of members and decided it was not “unduly offensive”.
The vessel’s owner, Paul Dynes, who described the saga as “absurd” and “nonsense”, told CBD he had no intention of taking the – traditionally unlucky – step of renaming his 26-footer.
“It’s been raced extensively throughout the state for the last 10 years, raced against thousands and thousands of people and one person found it offensive,” Dynes said.
“People have got the right to be offended, but sometimes the rest of us have a duty to ignore them.”
JUST THE TICKET
When we brought word in November that former US president Barack Obama was coming to town for a couple of speaking engagements, we thought the events would be sellouts, not least because former prime minister Julia Gillard’s show at Hamer Hall the previous month sold out within minutes.
We want you: Tickets are still selling for Barack Obama’s appearance with Julie Bishop.Credit: John Shakespeare
Back then, it looked like progressive former national leaders were a sure-fire hit for event promoters. Now, we’re not so sure.
For Obama, it looks like a tale of two cities, with plenty of tickets left for Wednesday night’s show MC’d by former foreign minister Julie Bishop at John Cain Arena, and you can still get in for $195. Things are a little tighter for Tuesday night’s show in Sydney, where there were still plenty of spots available when we looked on Monday but mostly at the pricier end of the room, costing upwards of $345.
We asked the show’s publicists how they thought things were going. We haven’t heard back.
STRIFE’S WORK
Women’s media entrepreneur Mia Freedman is to get the small-screen treatment, with Foxtel-owned streaming service Binge turning her 2017 memoir into an Asher Keddie-led show called Strife.
This is your life: Mia Freedman and Steve Hutensky.
Freedman is a co-executive producer on the project, which started filming this week, along with Keddie, and Steve Hutensky, a former entertainment lawyer who helped Harvey Weinstein secure secret settlements with women Weinstein had allegedly sexually harassed.
Hutensky is co-founder and chief operating officer of production company Made Up Stories, along with his wife, Bruna Papandrea, (also producing Strife). The company prides itself on producing stories with “intelligent, multifaceted female characters,” and is the recipient of millions in Screen Australia grants.
But in a past life, Hutensky spent decades as a lawyer for Weinstein’s production house, Miramax, with his work for the disgraced producer earning him the nickname “the cleaner-upper”. While Hutensky’s work with Weinstein was well-documented in American reporting, it’s rarely discussed in a domestic film industry where Made Up Stories is a big player.
While we’re not suggesting he was involved in any illegal acts, or knew the extent of the allegations against Weinstein (who is now sentenced to 39 years in prison for sexual assault), the whole connection just doesn’t sit well with Freedman’s pop feminist brand.
Neither Hutensky nor Freedman responded to CBD’s comment requests.
PARTY TIME
The non-expulsion of hardline conservative state Liberal MP Moira Deeming was pretty much the only thing anyone wanted to talk about in state politics this past week, but free speech, loose lips and related matters are always difficult subjects in party circles.
Victorian MP Moira Deeming leaves the Liberal party room after avoiding being expelled on Monday.Credit: Darrian Traynor
Some attendees at Friday night’s Liberal state assembly, a regular meeting of delegates to discuss party matters, were left griping that the party of free speech had strayed a little far from its principles when state branch president Greg Mirabella – allegedly – “gagged” discussion of the Deeming brouhaha, using official disallowance powers.
But that wasn’t the recollection of everyone in the room. CBD has been told, by someone who ought to know, that Mirabella simply addressed the “the elephant in the room” before the meeting got under way and suggested, to general agreement, that with a byelection to win this Saturday in Alan Tudge’s vacated seat of Aston, the assembly might be smart to kick the Deeming issue down the road for a couple of weeks.
Turned out the Liberals’ parliamentary team was thinking along the same lines with its decision to suspend the Western Metro MLA rather than agree to leader John Pesutto’s wish of turfing her from the party room altogether.
Great minds and all that.
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