By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
So concerned is the Victorian Liberal Party about neo-Nazis gatecrashing its events that it has sought advice from an expert security firm.
State MPs attended a seminar late last week at which previous targeting of Liberal MPs was discussed as well as protection strategies.
Liberal MP Ann-Marie Hermans addresses the protest in Berwick.Credit: Brad Battin/ Instagram
This was after an uncomfortable experience in November when shadow minister Brad Battin and fellow Liberal MP Ann-Marie Hermans held a rally to protest against a lack of consultation over the renaming of Berwick Springs Lake.
The lake was renamed Guru Nanak Lake, in honour of the founder of Sikhism. The protest meeting was gatecrashed by a small group of men dressed in black, including Thomas Sewell, the leader of the National Socialist Network. The MPs were caught unawares and quickly left.
The neo-Nazi group later referred to the event as the “Liberal Party Klan rally”.
Labor Premier Jacinta Allan was highly critical of the Liberal Party and put out a press release titled: “What is it about the Liberals and Neo Nazis?”
The briefing on Thursday also referred to the controversial Let Women Speak Rally held in March last year which led to Opposition Leader John Pesutto suspending and later expelling MP Moira Deeming from the party room.
Several groups of protesters arrived at the steps of parliament that day, without Deeming’s knowledge or approval, including neo-Nazis who performed the salute. Deeming condemned the men and later sued Pesutto for defamation over his public comments on the event.
Liberal Party MPs declined to go on the record about last week’s meeting, citing security concerns.
And it just so happens that on Monday Pesutto spoke at a function in Queens Hall at Parliament House organised by charity organisation Turbans 4 Australia – celebrating the 555th birthday of Guru Nanak.
What Aston did next
For Joe Aston, the former Rear Window columnist with our sister paper The Australian Financial Review, the past month has been quite the victory lap.
Aston’s book on Qantas launched in October, and its claims that Anthony Albanese lobbied the airline’s former boss, Alan Joyce, for flight upgrades (which the prime minister’s office eventually denied) dominated the news cycle for a week and led to some, but not all, MPs quitting the Chairman’s Lounge.
Since then, Aston has hit the podcast/lecture circuit with gusto. During the latest tour stop – a stage show with former 7.30 host Leigh Sales in Sydney – Aston revealed that next year he’d start publishing a newsletter on his own website, joeaston.com.au.
Generating headlines: Joe Aston at his book launch.Credit: Wolter Peeters
The site includes an option to book Joe for a speaking engagement, if that’s more your thing. More intriguing is the website’s domain owner – none other than Claire Kimball, the former Tony Abbott press secretary turned Woolworths spinner who’s now the brains behind The Squiz – a daily news email and podcast.
Has Aston gone from the heights of the Fin to a new media upstart? He was on a flight when we called (probably Qantas), but Kimball told us that while Joe’s newsletter wasn’t part of the Squiz empire they were “certainly working with Joe on his set-up”.
All change at Breakfast
It is a big CBD shoutout to ABC Canberra newsreader James Glenday. We are tipping the big guy to replace ABC News Breakfast host Michael Rowland, who announced on Monday that he is stepping away from the breakfast sofa after 14 years.
James Glenday, who presents the ABC’s ACT news bulletin, is tipped to replace Michael Rowland as News Breakfast co-host.Credit: ABC
Glenday, a frequent News Breakfast fill-in host this year, is an ABC presenter without portfolio as he is finishing up his ABC Canberra gig for an as-yet-unannounced new role.
This column previously tipped ABC journalist Linton Besser as the new Media Watch presenter before his appointment was announced.
And now we hear our November tip that former Nine chief executive Hugh Marks may replace David Anderson in the ABC managing director hot seat is firming up. So we are hoping for an ABC hat-trick before the year is out.
Former NSW RSL president James Brown has been preselected to run for the Liberals for the federal seat of Mackellar.
Captain Brown
Serial Liberal Party preselection hopeful James Brown finally got the nod to run against teal independent Sophie Scamps in the federal electorate of Mackellar.
No surprise really, considering Brown, once married to Malcolm Turnbull’s daughter Daisy Turnbull, bought Sydney teal MP Allegra Spender’s former holiday home in the northern Sydney electorate.
More surprising is some of Brown’s social media shuffling. A post from October, of Brown posing with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and conservative Liberal personality Teena McQueen has mysteriously vanished from Brown’s Instagram.
The trio had met at a Liberal event to discuss the party’s nuclear policy. More recently McQueen, a former Liberal vice president, was spotted partying at Mar-a-Lago along with Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, after Donald Trump won the US presidential election.
All this baggage made CBD rather suspicious about the photo’s disappearance. Was Brown worried that a happy snap with Teena might play badly with the good burghers of Mackellar, who dumped the Libs for a teal independent at the last election?
Not so, said Brown, who told us he’d purged pics from his account which no longer matched his current physique.
“I was 12kg heavier and looked like an unmade bed,” he told CBD.
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