By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
And so to Parliament House and what we at CBD Towers are calling “manure cake”-gate, day two.
Regular readers will recall this saga erupted on Tuesday after Liberal Party MPs Bev McArthur and Nicole Werner dumped a gift box containing a lump of manure and a protest message from a member of the public about the government’s unpopular emergency services levy.
Premier Jacinta Allan (right) and Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas take questions about the budget on Wednesday.Credit: Penny Stephens
At a press conference on Wednesday, Premier Jacinta Allan’s rancour was evident when she admonished the ABC after the national broadcaster tried to quiz her about the poo protest by referring to “shit delivered to your door”.
“Can you rephrase that please?” Allan demanded, accusing the national broadcaster of “making a mockery” of the incident.
The protest box.
In answering the rephrased question, which substituted “poo” for the more offensive word, Allan let out a long sigh and delivered a 300-word soliloquy, which we have edited here.
“Yesterday was a disgraceful performance ... can you imagine coming into any workplace … dumping cow manure … particularly offended ... staff member told me she felt unsafe … Liberal politicians acted in a disgraceful way … Brad Battin hasn’t condemned.
“Parliament is a place where members of parliament should behave to the highest of standards,” Allan concluded.
Opposition Leader Battin told reporters he wouldn’t have pulled the stunt but refused to condemn it.
McArthur was unapologetic on Tuesday for what she described as a “harmless stunt”, saying the Labor reaction suggested they “don’t get out of Melbourne much”. Which we thought was a bit inaccurate, considering Allan spends most weekends at home in Bendigo East.
“If we are looking for a serious point here, it’s the fact that the only way regional Victorians can get a message through to Labor politicians is by delivering a bullshit cake direct to their door,” McArthur said.
Allan noted that parliamentary officials are now involved and she awaits their response. This one could run and run.
Selling up
Not only is former AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou on his way back into the game, sorta, but he is selling his family mansion in Toorak. The asking price range is $15 million to $16.5 million.
Actually, Demetriou is not selling the 1930s six-bedroom, four-bathroom and six-car-space property, because he transferred ownership to his wife, Symone Richards, in 2019.
Melbourne Sotheby’s International Realty superagent Antoinette Nido is handling the sale, amid something of a dry patch among top-end sales. Expressions of interest close on June 16 at 1pm, so get your skates on.
Expressions of interest in the Toorak mansion close on June 16.
The property on 1066 square metres was designed by society architect Marcus Martin, and its interiors were updated by David Hicks (the esteemed interior designer, not the ex-Guantanamo Bay inmate). It is described as “architectural vision meets the grace of a long-held estate”.
In real estate speak, the property boasts Versailles-pattern oak flooring with a front sitting room spilling onto manicured gardens via French doors, while upstairs, six bedrooms with robes and an elevated living zone offer vistas over nearby Scotch College and the surrounding mountain ranges. Mountain ranges surrounding Scotch College is a new one on us.
Demetriou, who left the AFL gig in 2014, declined to be drawn on reasons for the sale when CBD called. “Nothing from me, thanks for asking.”
He has become a regular sounding board for AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon and executive general manager of football Laura Kane. Currently, there’s a lot to talk about.
The home includes six bedrooms.
The Age reported recently that Demetriou’s son Sacha, 15, is a player for the Sandringham Dragons under-16 team and is part of the North Melbourne father-son academy. And the pair have been attending North Melbourne games.
Demetriou is a former chairman of Crown Melbourne, and was roundly criticised for reading from notes when he gave evidence in 2020 to the NSW government’s Crown Resorts inquiry.
It prompted Commissioner Patricia Bergin to put her head in her hands at one point and ask: “Oh Mr Demetriou, why did you do it?”
Price advances her career
What a time to be alive it has been for Country Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.
Widely adored by conservatives after leading the campaign to defeat the Indigenous Voice to parliament, the Northern Territory senator’s flirtation with Donald Trump‘s Make America Great Again slogan went down like a 1000-megatonne bomb during an election campaign that ended with devastation for Peter Dutton’s Liberals.
Price promptly defected from the Nationals party room to have a crack at the deputy Liberal leadership, enraging many of her former colleagues in the process. She then enraged many of her new colleagues after chickening out of the deputy leader contest once Angus Taylor lost to Sussan Ley in the Liberal leadership ballot.
Then the Coalition spectacularly blew itself up this week, with the Liberals and the Nationals parting ways.
But Price remains optimistic. After her failed deputy leadership tilt, she told Sky News that lots of Australians wanted her to be prime minister. And on Wednesday, Price was out telling supporters about a silver lining for conservatives: the tremendous success of right-wing lobby group Advance.
“For me, as a member of the Coalition, this election was a gut punch, and I know so many of you feel the same way,” Price’s fundraising email to Advance supporters, sent several hours after the Coalition ceased to exist, began. “But there was one positive. The success of the ADVANCE campaign, smashing the Greens.”
The conservative pressure group, with whom Price joined forces during the Voice referendum, spent the election campaign attacking the Greens rather than helping Liberals, and has claimed responsibility for the Greens losing three seats, which went to Labor.
After Advance’s election role was questioned, its boss, Matthew Sheahan, called out critics as “bedwetting anonymous Liberals”.
Many of those bedwetters now share a party room with Price and despite what they might feel about her shilling for Advance, can’t be banishing anyone from their pews.
A new day
Plenty of ink has been spilled in this column, and elsewhere, documenting the trials and tribulations of Guardian Australia’s Canberra press gallery bureau, which faced a mass exodus of talent and the departure of political editor Karen Middleton right before the federal election campaign.
Journalist Amy Remeikis has joined The New Daily.
Now, a couple of those Guardian refugees have found a new home at online publication The New Daily. They include reader favourite and former Guardian Australia liveblogger Amy Remeikis, who left Guardian-land to take a job at progressive think tank the Australia Institute last year, and is now side-hustling as TND’s contributing editor, where she’ll write a weekly column.
She’ll also be reuniting with veteran press gallery photographer Mike Bowers, who left The Guardian last year, as this column reported. As for the process of rebuilding The Guardian’s press gallery bureau, CBD hears the search for a new political editor has been put on the backburner for now, with the publication’s overlord, Lenore Taylor, currently overseas. The West Australian’s Canberra bureau chief, Katina Curtis, previously of this masthead, is one name that has been through the rumour mill, but so far, the outlet is not even close to finalising things.
Middleton, meanwhile, who left The Guardian after months on the sidelines following a turbulent 2024, has been filing for the independent, formerly university-backed online publication Inside Story during the election campaign and aftermath.
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