Jimmy Barnes in a TGE bingle; They and them bust at Treasury

Chief executive Christine Holgate has offered her apologies. Picture NCA Newswire/ Gaye Gerard

Christine Holgate’s Team Global Express went grovelling on Thursday. That’s after it stood down a truckie and opened an investigation into the driver after he got in a blue with national treasure Jimmy Barnes and allegedly tried to duke it out with him on the side of the road.

National treasure Jimmy Barnes with wife Jane and daughter Mahalia at last month’s APRA Music Awards in Sydney. Picture: Getty Images

An incident involving such a beloved Australian musician immediately raises several questions. The most pressing asks who would even dare to consider taking a swing at the singer of Flame Trees when, clearly, the accepted course of action is to humbly beseech the rock immortal for a selfie.

Barnes’ wife, Jane, posted a rundown of the quarrel for the measured consideration of Twitter.

Barnes’s damaged car. Picture: Twitter

Photographs of the bingle, the rain-slicked car, the flattened mirror, the chaos and madness were included in the post, along with a snap of the driver gripped in full reptilian-brain mode. “Cut us off accross (sic) our lane and swiped our mirror, Wanted to fight Jimmy on the roadside. Trucks are like weapons, bullies behind the wheel a danger to us all,” wrote Jane.

She later said TGE had been in contact and Margin Call understands Holgate herself called up Barnes to smooth over the incident. Yet with uproar achieved, Camp Barnes seemed to clam up once the press showed interest. The man himself hung up in great haste when we got through, and his publicist said: “We will be making no further comment.”

As for the truckie, it seems he’s en route to a world of pain. A TGE spokesperson said the company had “zero tolerance for dangerous driving” and that the individual concerned had been sidelined pending the outcome of an investigation.

“On behalf of TGE, we unreservedly apologise to the individuals for the distress caused as a result of this incident,” they said.

Big issues

Forget about interest rates, the cost of living, the creeping death of mortgage cliffs. Treasury officials have been hard at work on another pressing concern: the use of pronouns.

A 26-page document obtained by Margin Call sets out fresh guidelines for how staff should manage cases of gender affirmation in the office. It includes a heightened emphasis on they/them deployment – in emails, in meetings, during introductions – and new rules governing the lavs, of course.

The recommendations have been thoroughly endorsed by Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, who wrote an introductory message, yet we noted a conspicuous lack of pronouns in his own signature block. Nor could we find any in the welcome message from Treasury’s designated pride champion, Luke Yeaman, a deputy secretary for the Macroeconomic Group.

This while staff have been encouraged, nay signalled, to display pronouns in their outgoing emails, to use gender-neutral language in conversation (“partner, child, parent” being the supplied suggestions) and to pro­ceed with great caution during fresh introductions – the advice is to use “they” or “them” when first meeting a colleague, at least until their preferred form of address is established.

Treasury’s designated pride champion, Luke Yeaman. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Signed off on May 9 and distributed thereafter, some matters, such as those concerning the bathrooms, are less of a nudge and more so outwardly explicit in their instruction.

“The shared use of bathrooms and facilities may raise concerns from some employees,” the document says, advising those with a problem to basically get with the program. It’s abundantly clear that, corporately, Treasury is heavily in favour of progress. “In no circumstances should a person who has affirmed or is affirming their gender be asked to use facilities that are not aligned with their gender expression or are gender neutral.”

Elsewhere, the document reaches for the abstract fringes. The introduction, just below Kennedy’s endorsement, deconstructs the flutier concepts of gender theory for Treasury’s button-down clerks, its neurotic geniuses and chess grandmasters.

“A person’s sex refers to physical attributes while gender is about a sense of self,” the document states. “Gender identity is an innate identity or sense of self that people are born with – a deeply felt sense of their gender. Some people’s sense of gender is different from the sex they were assigned.”

Margin Call sought figures from Treasury outlining how many of its staff currently identify as gender diverse. An extremely loud silence followed.

GetUp and go away

What’s up at GetUp?

Mere weeks after revealing a multimillion-dollar loss in FY22, Margin Call has learned the activists have purged their board and seemingly banished long-serving chair Phil Ireland.

Almost half of its six directors ended their tenure in February, despite each of them still having months, even years, left to serve out on their existing terms.

Queried about the upheaval, a spokesperson wouldn’t tell us much, except to say directors must not hold office “for more than three years without re-election”, with terms capped at a maximum of nine years. “This includes the position of chair of the board,” they said.

Out the door with Ireland (chairman since 2016) were directors Sara Saleh and Karla Dean, who served for seven years and two years, respectively. Anything to do with the droopy financials?

In January it emerged the not-for-profit had lost $2.06m during the financial year ending June 30, down from a net profit of $1.18m the previous year. Revenue fell from $11.23m to $10.47m, the loss partly caused by a spike in employee costs and administration expenses. Be kind, it was an election year. Presumably that’s why its cash balance dropped from $4.2m to $2.7m. Expect to see more of that, given GetUp’s involvement with polls in Victoria and NSW, and now for the Yes vote on the impending referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament.

Existing director Carla McGrath has been elevated to the role of chair in place of Ireland. He’s secured a role as CEO of Carbon Neutral, an Australian reforestation firm.

New to the board are Canadian-born community activist Alex Dirksen, Australian Conservation Foundation exec Claire Harman and international activist Ben Margetts.