By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
The showdown at Sorrento continues in the wake of the invite-only literary “sunset garden talk” hosted by Josephine and James Baillieu, of the prominent Victorian family, on Saturday night, while the Sorrento Writers Festival was in full swing.
James Baillieu and Corrie Perkin.Credit:
That event, held in a marquee at the Baillieus’ clifftop property and which included official Sorrento Writers Festival speakers Josh Frydenberg and Joe Aston, has put the cat right among Portsea’s pigeons.
While some thought the event was a conservative counterpoint to a typical lefty literary festival, the Baillieus say the independent event was in good spirits and designed to build on and be a counterpoint to the official festival as a sort of “SWF off-piste”.
The next day, SWF director Corrie Perkin, as CBD reported previously, wondered “why there are people in our community having a crack at our festival”.
That intervention further upset James Baillieu, who thought it unfair that Perkin should criticise an event in their private home.
“Sorrento is not your town,” Baillieu later texted Perkin. “You are a visitor only, even more reason to mind your own business.”
CBD was pleased to attend both the SWF and the garden party as a guest of both organisers.
There was no Welcome or Acknowledgement of Country at the garden event, instead the national anthem was performed.
This was a further contrast with the SWF, which had Lionel Lauch of Indigenous organisation Living Culture perform a Welcome to Country on behalf of the Bunurong community, while moderators gave an Acknowledgement of Country at the start of other sessions.
The festival has several First Nations writers and publishers who are part of its program.
Josephine and James Baillieu.Credit: Wayne Taylor
But during an impromptu speech at the garden literary gabfest, local Liberal MP Zoe McKenzie, a supporter of SWF, made a light-hearted joke comparing Advance Australia Fair to a Welcome to Country.
This further upset some in Sorrento.
Now, it emerges there is yet more beef. Turns out Baillieu couldn’t attend several SWF events because either the time or venue had changed since his tickets were issued.
SWF said it had updated ticket holders via email.
Corrie Perkin, founder of the Sorrento Writers Festival.Credit: Eddie Jim
Baillieu said that was news to him, and he was seeking either an apology or explanation from Perkin, plus $60 for his unusable tickets.
Changing allegiances
Congratulations to Paul Guerra, the new chief executive of the Melbourne Football Club, replacing Gary Pert.
Paul Guerra is the new Melbourne Football Club CEO.Credit: Jason South
Guerra, one of the few people in Melbourne to attend more events than CBD, has been chief executive of the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for five years.
He’s also a director at Racing Victoria and previously was the boss at the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria, which runs the Melbourne Royal Show.
The Age quoted competition sources saying the exec was a strong strategic thinker with good people skills, and the Demons believed it could “bring him up to speed on football”.
It will also have to bring him up to speed on being a Dees supporter, given Guerra is a lifelong Bombers tragic. We guess his re-education started yesterday.
“I’m moving from the business with politics to the business with sport, and with that, I’m trading the black and red of the Bombers to the red and blue of the Demons,” he told CBD.
And as for the soon-to-be vacant VECCI post, CBD is sure that chief of staff Chanelle Pearson would love the job. Other contenders might include failed Melbourne lord mayoral candidate Arron Wood, or Victorian executive director of the Property Council of Australia, Cath Evans.
No doubt it will be the hot topic at the chamber’s inaugural Melbourne Winter Ball, to be held in Southbank on May 29.
Bennelong matters
For the Liberals to have a hope on Saturday, they need to reclaim John Howard’s old stomping ground now held by Labor on a wafer-thin margin, the Sydney seat of Bennelong.
The party’s candidate, Scott Yung, has spent much of the campaign firmly in the “embattled” camp due to reports outlining his ties to a Chinese Communist Party-linked casino high roller. He also copped heat for handing out Easter eggs to primary school students, an election sweetener gone awry.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton at a gathering in support of the Liberal candidate for Bennelong, Scott Yung, at the Gladesville Sporties in the seat of Bennelong. Credit: James Brickwood
Yung was evasive when confronted with media questions, even fleeing his own campaign launch, but he found a softer landing on the podcast of his former boss, Mark Bouris, founder of mortgage-lender Yellow Brick Road.
“I just want to clarify for the sake of this conversation: you’re not a communist are you?” Bouris asked.
“I think it’s borderline racism. Just because I’ve got an Asian face, my parents have come from China and Hong Kong, they call me a communist,” Yung responded.
The fine-print on the podcast disclosed that it was authorised by Yung’s campaign – often a tell-tale sign of a paid post.
Nothing fishy, we hear. Due to an Australian Electoral Commission crackdown on influencer content, the authorisation was added to avoid any further damaging headlines.
Winning ways
The scion of one of Australia’s grandest, faded media dynasties has got the green light for a renovation at his $22 million mansion to build a new, er, wall. Charles Fairfax, son of the late Lady (Mary) Fairfax, AC, OBE, and heir to the family that once published this masthead, lodged a development application with local Sydney Woollahra Council last year, but it was rejected.
The resort-style property, which Charles and wife Kate picked up in 2022, is just 10 minutes down the road from his fabled childhood home, Fairwater, in Double Bay, now owned by billionaire tech baron Mike Cannon-Brookes.
Fairfax appealed against the council’s rejection to the Land and Environment Court. After a conciliation conference, a revised plan kept everyone happy … and out of court.
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