By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
The Australian can’t get enough of Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.
Long before the Country Liberal was a senator for the Northern Territory, and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s secret weapon in the Indigenous Voice to parliament referendum last year, Price was a beloved News Corp talking head, regularly gracing the pages of the national broadsheet, and popping off on Sky News.
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was probably the most junior politician at The Australilan’s bash.Credit: Louie Douvis
We’re hardly surprised, then, that Price was among the crowd of old and new money that gathered in Sydney to celebrate 60 years of The Australian in July.
Hosted by the empire’s heir Lachlan Murdoch at the Australian Museum, guests included Prime Minister Anthony Albanese; his deputy, Richard Marles; Dutton; former PM John Howard; shadow treasurer Angus Taylor; mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest; Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar; Merivale pub mogul Justin Hemmes; and racing and rugby league head honcho Peter V’landys.
Our correspondents reckoned it was “one of the richest rooms Australia has ever assembled”.
Price, who was elected in 2022 but quickly forced her way into Dutton’s shadow cabinet, was probably the most junior politician in the mix. However, News Corp clearly wanted her there, so much so that the media empire paid for her flights to Sydney and accommodation specifically for the event, according to her register of interests.
None of the other politicians lucky enough to score a golden ticket had their expenses covered, as far as we can tell. Maybe Price asked News Corp – which would be such a Gen Z Instagram-influencer girlboss move that we can’t help but express sneaking admiration.
We asked News Corp if it had put Price up at the Vibe Hotel Darling Harbour but didn’t hear back.
GIRL POWER
In the male-dominated construction world, the hard hat on a woman’s head is not always a snug fit but like a tunnel boring machine. However, the Victorian government hopes to shift that a little and at the same time burnish the social credentials of its unpopular $200 billion Suburban Rail Loop.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan.Credit: Darrian Traynor
Boring machines will drill their way between Cheltenham and Glen Waverley on the SRL East as part of the government plan to drill an equally enormous chasm in the state’s finances.
Eight teams are being hired to man (sorry for the choice of verb there) the four giant pieces of machinery. One of the teams will be entirely female.
To make sure we haven’t missed it, Spring Street has put out two press releases mentioning this fact. The initiative was announced last month by Suburban Rail Loop Minister Danny Pearson.
On Monday Premier Jacinta Allan had taken over mentions of the achievement, informing us that “two slurry machines will be used in the northern section, while in a Victorian first, two convertible machines will be used in the south – with the TBMs set to be converted from slurry to earth pressure balance machines to work through the softer ground in Cheltenham”.
So now, readers, you are completely up to date.
In charge of the project is SRL East Tunnels south construction manager Isolde Piet – the first female tunnel boring machine pilot in the world.
There are about 25 highly skilled roles available next year, when tunnelling starts, including the TBM operator, gantry and segment crane operators, even grouters. And 600 women have already applied.
BACK FOR BUSINESS
Anthony Templeton is back. The spinner for former lord mayor Sally Capp left his post as senior media and communications adviser in 2021 and held positions at Monash University’s Turner Institute and as a media manager for then-premier Daniel Andrews.
Then Templeton jumped ship last year to become a city reporter for our friends at the Herald Sun, where he terrorised Town Hall with a series of hard-hitting stories such as “Outrage as ‘hypocrite’ Capp jets off to climate conference”.
He also mused in an opinion column that a book about Capp’s time as lord mayor would be called The Wasted Years.
“Admittedly, it probably wouldn’t be a bestseller,” he wrote in the Herald Sun.
He then headed to the Northern Territory to head communications for chief minister Eva Lawler (she lost the August election big time).
Now Templeton is back heading up comms for lord mayoral candidate Arron Wood, who had his own falling-out with Capp and is the chief rival to her successor as lord mayor, Nicholas Reece.
“I am very happy to be back in Melbourne,” Templeton told CBD.
He started last week, but day one didn’t go swimmingly. The campaign printed his phone number incorrectly on his first media release.
THINK OF THE STAFFERS
Political staffers cop it in the neck from all directions. Sometimes even from us. So we feel it’s only fair to draw attention to an appreciation post for these beleaguered folk from an unexpected source – CT Group founder Mark Textor.
Mark Textor has backed the worker bees.Credit: Janie Barrett
Textor, the “internationally celebrated campaign pollster and communications strategist” (according to CT Group), took to LinkedIn to lament the rough time society dishes out to the worker bees.
“Political staffers take a mountain of B/S from all sides, including their own, but they’re working under pressure most wouldn’t even dream of ... all while facing the constant threat of being out of a job after the next election,” wrote Textor, who helped John Howard to election victories here and Boris Johnson to election wins in Britain.
“But critics, comfortably sitting at their keyboards, don’t understand the realities of life in politics.”
That would be us. So we are more than happy to “drop the 360-degree cynicism” as Textor puts it and give staffers some credit.
“They’re the backbone of government, getting their hands dirty making sure the wheels don’t fall off. They deserve recognition for it,” he wrote.
And some of them make for excellent sources. So recognition over, normal mockery shall resume tomorrow.
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