By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
As the political flotsam and jetsam washes up from federal election ’25, and longstanding staffers bail out of Canberra, the nation’s former MPs have been contemplating their navels – and their futures.
Few were as speedy as ex-Liberal MP Keith Wolahan, who has already returned to the bar, as CBD reported, having kept his barrister practising licence while in parliament as a kind of electoral insurance.
Getting the band back together: Ex-adviser Angela Pippos and former MP Zoe Daniel are hitting the speaking circuit.Credit: Matt Jasper
Now former teal independent MP Zoe Daniel is ready to talk about her new side project after she lost a bitter battle for the bayside Melbourne seat of Goldstein to born-again Liberal MP Tim Wilson, by 175 votes.
Daniel, an ex-ABC journalist, is exploring a number of opportunities that line up with some of the issues she campaigned over after she was elected in the teal wave in 2022.
In the meantime, she is “throwing the switch to vaudeville”, as Paul Keating once boasted, teaming up with her friend and former adviser Angela Pippos to launch a series of speaking gigs.
“It will be a revealing look at politics, power and friendship,” Pippos, who found a degree of fame as the ABC 7pm News sports presenter, told CBD.
“Depending on the audience, we will also talk about policy and advocacy and how to get projects over the line, and also the community independent movement more broadly.”
Pippos gave a flavour of what audiences can expect in the Zoe and Ange Show in a recent piece in Women’s Agenda. “Friendship can take you to some funny places,” Pippos wrote.
“But of all the places, I never thought it would take me into the heart of a federal election campaign. A savage, bruising and bloody campaign. And yet there I was, right in the guts of it with my best friend by my side, and not just as my best friend – but as my boss.”
Intense times, indeed. “The friendship stuff has that kind of Thelma and Louise vibe,” Pippos told us. Well, hopefully not with the same outcome, Ange.
Daniel was more circumspect, telling us: “Ange has persuasive powers. I’m looking forward to jumping up on stage with her and chatting all things politics, power and friendship. It’ll be fun.”
Meanwhile, Wilson has fired up LinkedIn to advertise for a new staffer. It’s a safe bet that Pippos will not be applying.
Landholding in Lahore
Much to the delight of Labor hacks, the Greens party room contains more than a few landlords, with their ratio only strengthened after voters purged the rabid renter Max Chandler-Mather from parliament.
Senator Mehreen Faruqi is offloading her landholding in her home city of Lahore, Pakistan. Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Now comes the news that NSW senator and deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi, once owner of four properties, appears to be whittling down her portfolio.
CBD brought word last year that Faruqi had sold a four-bedder in Port Macquarie for $920,000, taking home a tidy profit after nixing plans to bulldoze native trees and build two townhouses on the land.
Now, according to parliamentary disclosures, Faruqi appears to be parting with a parcel of land in her home city of Lahore, Pakistan, where she grew up, before migrating to Australia in the 1990s. The senator has held the 500-square-metre land holding since before she entered federal parliament back in 2018, after a five-year stint in the NSW upper house.
And the reason for the sale? The good senator and her team didn’t enlighten us. But Faruqi’s Pakistani roots have long made her a target for all manner of nasty commentary.
Last year, the Federal Court ruled that One Nation leader Pauline Hanson had racially vilified Faruqi in a tweet telling her Senate colleague to “go back to Pakistan”.
No doubt such nastiness would have escalated had Faruqi replaced Adam Bandt as Greens leader. Instead, Larissa Waters ran unopposed, and in the race to be deputy, Faruqi beat Dorinda Cox, who promptly defected to Labor. Waters, for what it’s worth, owns just one residential property in Brisbane.
Ten show comes 20th
Network Ten has well and truly been in its flop era for some time. But killing off The Project doesn’t seem to have reversed the decline.
The network axed its nightly current affairs panel variety show last week after 16 years as part of a bold rebrand. On Monday, the new era dawned to much fanfare with the debut of 10 News+, hosted by Seven defectors Denham Hitchcock and Amelia Brace.
Amelia Brace and Denham Hitchcock.Credit: Wolter Peeters
But the new offering landed with a whimper, drawing just 291,000 viewers, with a fair chunk of those watching the 5pm 10 News switching off once the new program started.
Yes, it is early days, but 10 News+ was the 20th most-watched television show in the country on Monday night, hammered by the evening news on its commercial rivals at Nine (owner of this masthead) and Seven.
And to further Ten’s humiliation, Monday’s numbers were down on The Project’s year to date average of 350,000 viewers.
Someone get Waleed Aly and Steve Price on the blower. Hitchcock and Brace’s first outing featured a lengthy investigation into an Australian woman convicted of smuggling drugs in Taiwan, and an interview with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who confirmed that he would not be calling Donald Trump “daddy” (if the pair ever actually get to meet).
The show’s anaemic opening night ratings didn’t spark joy for Ten, but they did excite the network’s commercial rivals, some of whom were gleefully briefing the numbers to journalists on Tuesday.
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