The great and the good of the Liberal Party are set to gather on Tuesday night and party like it’s 1959.
Party members will congregate to say sayonara to their former eastern Melbourne heartland seat of Higgins, which fell into Labor hands at the last election (oh no) but will now be killed off by the Australian Electoral Commission in a redistribution (oh well). The schadenfreude must be exquisite.
Former treasurer Peter Costello is preparing to say farewell to Higgins. Credit: Natalie Boog
Attending the Higgins 200 Club bash to sink the saveloys and ingest the riesling will be a trio of former local MPs: Peter Costello, Kelly O’Dwyer and Katie Allen.
Where are they now? Costello, the former federal treasurer, was chairman of Nine (owner of this column) until he resigned in June after a Canberra Airport scuffle with a reporter. But he popped up again in CBD after joining the board of the Liberal-aligned secret fundraising body the Cormack Foundation.
O’Dwyer is a non-executive director of listed companies Home Consortium and Equity Trustees as well as a non-executive director of upstart investment bank Barrenjoey.
Allen, a medical researcher, lost Higgins to Labor. But after the seat was abolished she turned to the neighbouring seat of Chisholm and blasted out the preselected candidate, local councillor Theo Zographos, as allowed under party redistribution rules.
CBD is more interested in the money. While the Liberal Party’s local organisation, the Higgins FEC, is disbanding, the $1 million Higgins Foundation – set up as an election campaign cash cow – is not. This has led to some raised eyebrows, given the seat will no longer exist.
The foundation directors are Liberal Party stalwart Alan Cullen, Herbert Smith Freehills senior adviser Robert Nicholson and former JB Hi-Fi chief executive, now Total Tools retail chain boss, Richard Murray. CBD wonders if candidates in other seats will be able to apply for grants.
“There would be a line of people as long as Flemington straight who would come to Higgins for help,” a senior Liberal told CBD. That money will now be redistributed mainly to Chisholm and Kooyong, a Liberal source said, despite there being “not much left”.
Keep your hat on
It’s that time of year when hats get doled out at The Age Good Food Guide awards to the industry’s best restaurants and chefs.
But one person remains publicly unhappy about a system that aims to provide independent food reviews to paying customers: Attica chef and owner Ben Shewry.
Ben Shewry at Attica.
Readers may recall Kiwi-born Shewry just published his memoir, Uses For Obsession, in which he lit a bombe Alaska under the critics – including from The Age – who judge his cooking. He also called out food guides for their “oppressive review system”.
Shewry, of course, has been widely lauded for his modern Australian restaurant in Ripponlea, which held the coveted top ranking of three hats for a decade. He remained quiet on any concerns about the system during this period.
The downgrading of Attica from three hats to two in 2022, Shewry assured us, had nothing to do with his extraordinary spray in his book about the food media, which he said were part of a “feckless system, built on hype”, claiming they did not have the correct qualifications, training or experience.
Well, Shewry had another crack at The Age Good Food Guide, taking to Instagram over the weekend to write that he no longer consented to food critics reviewing his establishment (and its $385-per-person tasting menu).
“We wrongly assumed food critics would stop reviewing Attica after the release of my book,” he wrote.
We will not take the Shewry path when it comes to discussion of reviewing, where even unhappy chefs with limited media qualifications can and should still have their say.
You see, reviews are not for you Ben, they’re for the diners – your customers.
In his post, Shewry accused The Age of trying to discredit him by reporting his claims.
“There has been no attempt by these critics to engage with their ethical failings, their lack of expertise, the damage they have done to people,” he said.
Sarah Norris, head of Good Food, said the judging system used by its reviewers was fair and robust.
“No restaurant can pay to be included in the guide, sponsors can’t ask for inclusions, and each review is conducted according to an exacting, rigorous and detailed scoring system,” she said. “The thing we require most from our reviewers is that they represent the public, because our primary responsibility is to the dining public, not to the chefs.”
Attica learnt on Monday night how many hats it received in this year’s Age Good Food Guide (two). But Shewry wasn’t on hand at the awards event to hear about it, having knocked back an invitation: “Now we have to explicitly withdraw ourselves from this circus,” he wrote on Instagram.
Jones being Jones
Monday began with Alan Jones arrested at his luxury Circular Quay apartment over allegations that he had indecently assaulted several young men.
Just days earlier, Jones was being Jones and mingling with power.
Last Thursday, he shared a stage with former prime minister John Howard at an event put on by Australians for Constitutional Monarchy to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 1999 republic referendum.
And on Saturday he was giving a speech at the 80th birthday party of Maurice Neil, KC, a barrister and former soldier who served as a federal MP for the Liberals in the 1970s.
Jones’ arrest came nearly 12 months after an investigation by this masthead first revealed allegations of inappropriate behaviour made against him spanning several decades.
Since the stories broke late last year, Jones has kept a relatively low profile, remaining off the screens at his online-only outrage streaming machine, ADH TV. CBD spotted him spending Easter at the Gold Coast with former Victorian Liberal powerbroker Marcus Bastiaan and wife Stephanie Bastiaan.
Will Jones’ invites dry up after Monday’s arrest? We’ll be watching.
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