Former MasterChef judge George Calombaris eyes mystery venture

George ­Calombaris has opened a Greek restaurant and is cooking up another venture on the Mornington Peninsula. Picture: David Caird

Former MasterChef judge and failed restaurateur George ­Calombaris is busy making a comeback. That’s after three years of being all but banished to Siberia following the collapse of his Made Establishment food empire and the accompanying shame of having underpaid his employees by almost $8m.

Two weeks ago he opened his latest Greek restaurant, The Hellenic House Project, in the Melbourne suburb of Highett, receiving a leg-up from business partners Philipe Hatzikourtis and Melbourne builder Ivo Baldari. Hatzikourtis owns the building from which the new eatery is operating.

Looks like the chef is also cooking up another venture with his supporters on the Mornington Peninsula, where he’s got his eyes on a block of land along the retail strip at Rye. It seems Hatzikourtis has stumped up the cash for the project, but the chef and Baldari are still figuring out what to do with it.

They have set up a company named after the block’s address, a short drive from Calombaris’s home at Arthurs Seat. He’s also keeping an eye on the food offering at the redeveloped Sorrento Hotel.

Dropping the ball

It was a historic moment, but Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff still tripped up over the announcement that his state ­finally had its hands on the licence for the 19th AFL team.

In Hobart on Wednesday alongside outgoing AFL chief Gillon McLachlan and acting PM Richard Marles (a mad Geelong Cats fan), Rockcliff flubbed the league boss’s name, spoiling his moment by referring to the high-profile sports administrator as “Gillion”.

McLachlan took it in his stride, although he was coy about revealing who might chair the new Tassie club.

“The chairperson is the critical appointment … and I imagine conversations on that will be in the coming weeks, not months. (It) needs to be a Tasmanian in my view … I am very confident it will be a Tasmanian.”

He was droll when asked how soon before a club CEO might be appointed. “Ah, this afternoon, (long pause) … no, that’s a joke.”

Richmond CEO Brendon Gale, left, chats with former Victorian premier John Brumby at the Australian Open tennis earlier this year. Picture: Michael Klein

Nevermind that there’s already talk of who might fill those important shoes. Missing out on the top AFL job was Brendon Gale, a former player and wildly successful Richmond CEO. His candidacy was vetoed by club presidents who wanted an appointee without strong club ties.

Gail, we note, hails from the Apple Isle, was born in Burnie and still owns real estate in the northwest town of Penguin – notable for being home to a very large penguin structure. (“The Big Penguin” is its official name.) But it’s also home to the Penguin Two Blues, the local team that Gale regards as his first footy love, and with whom he maintains contact.

Maybe it’s time for a homecoming?

Shadow play

For a glimpse at some truly delusional behaviour, it’s difficult to go past Nicolette Boele’s latest effort to solicit cash from the voters of Bradfield in Sydney’s north.

We’ve chronicled Boele’s antics in this column before. She ran against Liberal MP Paul Fletcher in the 2022 election as a Climate 200 representative and lost by a convincing post-preference result – even the nation’s collective infatuation with teal candidates could only help her so much at the time.

Undeterred, Boele emerged months later with a self-appointed title as the seat’s “shadow representative”. This would be kooky enough as a lark, but Boele is deadly serious.

Nicolette Boele with Simon Holmes a Court.

Despite admitting that she is unable to act on voter concerns in any meaningful way, she has still opened an office, recruited a chief of staff, and has received the blessing of Climate 200 founder Simon Holmes a Court, who laughed off this fakery as, haha, a bit of “chutzpah”.

On the primary vote, Boele won 20.9 per cent to Fletcher’s 45 per cent. A Labor candidate garnered 17.5 per cent. A Greens candidate and minor parties also ran against Fletcher, yet none of them are thrusting themselves forth as unelected, unauthorised and entirely bogus “shadow representatives”.

As a sleight of hand on the community, it lacks grace; with money involved it edges closer to that demarcating line of deception.

Boele is asking for ongoing donations – $300 or more in monthly payments. Doing so, she claims, will provide a “new way” of addressing the opacity of campaign financing, because it will be “people, not corporates” providing support.

“If you’re up for helping reform political campaign finance, please donate – it feels nearly as good as giving blood. Try it,” she said.

None of this is new, as Boele claims. Major parties have been signing individuals to small recurring donations for years, as have charities. Building a base of subscription payments to cosplay as an elected MP until the next election isn’t new, or inventive – it’s wildly impractical and doesn’t move the needle on donations reform.

Sadly, a vulnerable or poorly informed person could conceivably mistake Boele for a working representative based on her very sincere attempts to create a likeness to one. Unless they trawl her website, they might donate without fully grasping her political impotence.

To state it once more, she cannot act on voter concerns. She cannot vote on bills. Dear reader, she cannot even walk into parliament without wearing a visitor tag.

Wiping slate clean

Speaking of teals, we poked fun at Allegra Spender in our last column after she appeared at a House Economics Committee from what appeared to be her office.

Allegra Spender.

It was amusing because of a whiteboard in the background that gave off some valuable intel about Spender’s priorities for the year. The list was slim, the words “tax” and “voice” being the only items we spied on the agenda. Obviously the voters of Wentworth care about little else, like childcare and the cost of living.

Spender declined to respond but she certainly seemed to react. On Wednesday she was back attending another committee meeting, but this time with the whiteboard completely cleansed of all notes and scribblings. Are they no longer priorities?