Michelle Guthrie: ABC and SBS could co-operate to save money

Illustration: Rod Clement.

Had our innovative Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull been there it would have been music to his ears: new ABC boss ­Michelle Guthrie, in her first major outing since taking Mark Scott’s office in May, foreshadowing closer co-operation with her sibling public broadcaster, Michael Ebeid’s SBS.

Probed by political commentator Peter van Onselen at The Australian’s Creative Country talkfest in Melbourne on whether that meant she was in favour of a merger, Guthrie (whose stature meant she just made it over the podium and to the microphone) clarified that she just meant more collaboration to save money.

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“Obviously that’s a matter for government … (but) as fellow public broadcasters we are operating in the same space, we are funded by taxpayers and we should be co-operating,” she told the heavy-hitting audience.

“There are ways we can help each other.”

And to that end she said she had already discussed such with Ebeid, though it was too early for her to roll out her “masterplan” for Aunty.

First impressions

It was a soft launch of sorts for the media boss and former Google exec Guthrie, who is unaccustomed to major speeches.

She spoke often of her two teenage daughters, one of whom has been studying in China and will shortly relocate to the US, while the other has been a boarder at exclusive Sydney ladies college Kambala while her parents were living in Singapore.

Her children, who are obsessed with Snapchat, are reference points for how Guthrie’s ABC will seek to broaden its reach demographics beyond the under-12s and over-45s.

Guthrie’s chef hubby Darren Farr remains in the Lion City running his own restaurant. Guthrie has an apartment in Pyrmont and a home in Palm Beach.

Heavyweight crowd

Guthrie started the morning in a private room upstairs sharing coffee with News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller and this mighty broadsheet’s editor-in-chief, Paul Whittaker.

Later from the stage Oz journalist Chris Kenny called the ABC “the most important cultural institution in Australia”.

National Australia Bank boss Andrew Thorburn missed Guthrie’s epistle, arriving just in time for his own stint on stage with most of his executive team in the room for moral support.

“Retiring” HR chief Michaela Healey, who last week found herself on the wrong side of Thorburn’s restructure, was there, along with Thorburn’s head of risk, David Gall.

And front and centre for the boss’s address were the big winners from NAB’s new world order, Antony Cahill and Andrew Hagger, who have effectively been set up in a two-horse-race internal succession plan.

Come in spinners

But back to Canberra, where things are falling into place in PM T’s office.

Former ABC journalist Mark Simpkin joins the Turnbull fold on Monday as head of his press office. It’s not all new territory for the veteran broadcaster, who in late 2014 leapt to the dark side as Tony Abbott’s comms chief, but then went off to work with junior minister Christian Porter when Abbott lost the top job.

Former AFR hack Gemma Daley will continue in a senior role in the PM’s press staff, co-ordinating other cabinet minister press secs. Both Simpkin and Daley will report to the PM’s long-serving and well-regarded deputy chief of staff, Brad Burke.

Former Fairfax journo John Garnaut, who joined Turnbull at the end of last year, will move to a foreign policy gig, Kathryn McFarlane will continue in her senior press office role, while former Ten reporter Matt “Boy from Boya” Moran is headed for a policy job in another ministerial office, with smart money on Defence.

As predicted, David Bold will be the PMO’s Senate cross bench liaison.

Francesca’s frolics

Ahead of mum Gretel Packer’s impending 50th birthday, socialite daughter Francesca Packer Barham looks to be spreading her wings.

The 21-year-old appears to have outgrown billionaire mum’s Fairfax Road, Bellevue Hill compound in favour of new digs not far away on Kambala Road in a mansion long held by Packer family interests.

The young Packer is tripping about London as part of an apparent gap year from studies at Sydney University that has also seen her and friends take in other exotic parts of Europe and the US.

It seems a quick change of plan for the late Kerry Packer’s eldest grandchild, who had been planning a move to be nearer her new Melbourne boyfriend Kelli Holland. At the end of last year she paid $6 million (with a mortgage to mum) for a South Yarra home, but alas the new romance quickly fizzled.

While overseas the young Packer has also been working to unwind other tie-ups with previous rocker boyfriend Josh Mullane. She has applied to strike off several companies the pair had plans for. What a difference a year can make.

Still, Gretel’s eldest child isn’t waiting for new love to get on with business and an apparent desire to see her future in fashion.

She has established entity My Closet Is Yours, ready for when she returns to life in Oz.

Snatch and grab

Child recovery specialist Adam Whittington has now returned to Sweden to be with his family after spending 104 nights in a Beirut jail after trying to get Sally Faulkner’s kids back, all under the watchful eye of the Tara Brown-led crew from Hugh Marks’ 60 Minutes.

Whittington says he’s coming to Oz to tell all about the child-snatching saga, but so far he doesn’t seem to have any takers to fork out for his yarn.

Kerry Stokes’ Seven says it doesn’t want a bar of it, which is the same moral high ground that the Tim Worner-led network took over paying for the story of Sydney PR maven Roxy Jacenko (now fighting breast cancer), wife of insider trader Oliver Curtis.

Faulkner has a book deal to tell her side of the affair, while her estranged husband Ali Elamine has his best mate in Oz, Elie Boustani — whose day job is running his own security outfit — on the ground in Sydney seeking to hammer out a deal. Numbers being thrown about are in the order of $150,000, but as for Whittington there have been no nibbles.

Road to recovery

Sydney workplace lawyer John Laxon has made something of a career from advising shafted Nine news and current affairs producers.

It all started with Mark Llewellyn over his sacking in the early 2000s at the hands of then network boss Eddie McGuire and the infamous affidavit that Laxon put together talking about McGuire’s “boning” of Jessica Rowe and the “shit sandwich” that legal exec Jeff Browne told Llewelyn he’d have to suck up in the form of a pay cut.

Laxon is now helping sacked 60 Minutes producer Stephen Rice, who was made the scapegoat over Faulknergate.

Could fellow 60 Minutes producer Rebecca Le Tourneau turn to Laxon, after she and the network parted ways following her repeated booze-related indiscretions?

Laxon was tight-lipped about the Rice case this week and said he had yet to hear from Le Tourneau. But if she needs his number there’s no shortage of mates who should have it.

Will Glasgow is on leave.