Craig Kelly fails to unite with rally reality
It would be uncontroversial to assume that a certain cohort of Australia’s voting public will naturally gravitate towards the nutty musings of Craig Kelly and the United Australia Party at the forthcoming election.
What is surprising, however, is that Kelly would apparently share a stage with some of the leading lights of a flaring imbecility – and then lie about it – during a rally held outside Parliament House on Budget Day, March 29.
Addressing a crowd on the bed of a truck was Mark McMurtrie, founder of the Original Sovereign Tribal Federation, a group seeking to delegitimise state and federal governments by claiming they are “operating without a license (sic)”, whatever that actually means.
Eager to cause offence to basic sanity, McMurtrie told the assembled crowd of a little-known Zionist conspiracy secreted within the Union Jack in the corner of the Australian flag, held up by several people in the audience.
“The union of Jacob represents three Hebrew tribal flags. And if you’re worried about, we’re standing under the Jews and what they represent, that’s what you’re standing under when you carry that flag,” McMurtrie warned.
Cue a round of light applause from a couple of casual, drop-in doofuses in the audience, one of whom shouted: “Get rid of them.” McMurtrie was later joined on stage by that other conspiratorial sock puppet, David Cole, who routinely publishes gouts of bile on Facebook and YouTube.
Of course, Kelly may be renowned as a foghorn of ignorance, and he’s certainly attempted to die on a number of silly hills – not least of all the effectiveness of vaccines – but even we expected better of him on this occasion – and perhaps that’s our fault. As they say, no friendship is an accident.
Three days later the former Liberal MP tried to distance himself from the remarks, telling Jewish media outlet Plus61J that McMurtrie had not been invited to the UAP event and that it had ended by 10am, more than an hour before McMurtrie addressed the crowd from an allegedly separate truck bed.
Not true, say our spies, who clocked McMurtrie on the truck bed at 11.15am and Kelly, on the very same stage, at 12.42pm, long after he claimed to have already packed up and gone home.
Awkward, really, given the UAP allegedly has a number of Jewish candidates standing for election.
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Libs fire heats up
If it feels like the Liberal Party cannot help but try to self-immolate at every opportunity along the path to a federal election, there’s yet more kerosene being flung towards the pyre.
On Tuesday night the NSW Young Liberals voted to recognise the “importance of preselecting candidates early to remain electorally competitive”, a motion which, given recent sensitivities around candidate preselections, would have been regarded as spicy enough.
But they went one better, putting up a motion to condemn Alex Hawke for attempting to “frustrate and subvert” the democratic preselection process.
Sound familiar? A mere fortnight ago the Immigration Minister was similarly accused of blocking “proper preselections across NSW” in a kamikaze-style speech delivered by outgoing senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells.
Hawke, of course, is Scott Morrison’s representative on the NSW Liberal Party state executive, and the motion against him passed unanimously with 80 Young Liberals voting in favour of it, including Young Liberal president Deyi Wu.
This all made for a very unhappy Liberal HQ, whose officials seized up at the news, fuming that the motion wasn’t amended before it went to the floor.
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Rosamond’s retail gig
A girl’s gotta make a living.
And so it is for former corporate high flyer and consultant to this nation’s four pillars.
Margin Call spies embedded in Sydney’s eastern suburbs report that former Human Group CEO and alleged National Australia Bank fraudster Helen Rosamond is keeping the wolves from the door via a little gig in retail, as a pharmacist’s assistant, to be more precise, in downtown Edgecliff.
Rosamond is amid court proceedings relating to 73 charges of fraud against NAB to which she has pleaded not guilty.
She is alleged to have given kickbacks to former NAB executive Rosemary Rogers, who was at the time chief of staff to NAB chief executive Andrew Thorburn, as part of an inflated invoices scheme.
Rogers pleaded guilty to charges relating to the scheme and has been jailed for eight years.
Rosamond’s raft of charges include corruptly offering a benefit. She is due to face a four-month trial mid-this year.
Rosamond’s defence is being funded by Legal Aid.
At least the shop work means she can buy coffee.
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Total ‘don’t recall’
If NSW gaming regulator chair Philip Crawford decides to release a board game, maybe he can call it “Don’t Recall”.
Star Entertainment general counsel Oliver White was back with his feet to the fire on Thursday at Adam Bell’s unfolding independent inquiry into the casino group’s operations.
If Margin Call had a tipple for each time the law man responded to a question with the answer “I don’t recall” we’d be legless by afternoon tea.
White, who has been in his role at Star for a decade and before that was a lawyer variously at MinterEllison in Sydney, Clifford Chance in Hong Kong and Linklaters in Hong Kong, clearly has a terrible memory.
After first getting a little teary in the box when he started giving evidence on Tuesday afternoon, White has since then found it hard to remember much about what might be considered key events at all.
Did you watch the 60 Minutes’ Crown expose? White said he didn’t recall.
When did you receive the Hong Kong Jockey Club report? Again his answer: I don’t recall.
And can you remember what the reaction was to it in the business? Can’t recall.
At least the Star man, who likes to think with his eyes wide shut, is in good company, with the likes Bill Clinton, Carmen Lawrence and Alan Bond.
Good company indeed.
Melbourne Cup-winning trainers’ cash bonanza shemozzle
Training Knight’s Choice in the Melbourne Cup should have brought joy to Sheila Laxon and John Symons, except their winning cheque was wrongly sent to a company in liquidation.
PwC’s tax scandal leaves peers shy of donating to pollies
PwC’s scandalous tax leaks saga led to plenty of point scoring by both major parties but their enthusiasm for sinking the boot in has cost their election war chests.