Australia seems to finally be emerging from onerous Covid mandates, as the country awakes from its two-year pandemic slumber. But it’s a different world for media travelling on Anthony Albanese’s campaign bus.
Diary has obtained the email that contains the full list of Covid protocols from the Labor leader’s media team to reporters travelling on the Albo bus. It’s fair to say the email is worthy of any mandates from Dan Andrews at the peak of the pandemic in 2020. But now Diary hears word that at least one senior journalist has rebelled against the bus mandate.
There are three key components to Albo’s bus rules: triple vaxxing, N95 masks on and off the bus, and testing every three days.
The email sternly outlines the strict requirements for the Albo bus in bold, just in case reporters were in any doubt: “Media travelling with the Leader of the Opposition will be required to provide proof of triple vaccination status. Please do this ASAP,” it states.
“Travelling media will also be required to wear N95 masks when indoors, in crowded areas and while on the plane or bus. Media must do a RAT before joining the travelling party and must continue a self-testing regime, testing every three days at accommodation before attending any events for that day (please note: tests will not be supplied by the ALP)”.
So in effect, journalists will have to fork out for multiple RAT tests throughout the campaign – just for the privilege of travelling with Albo.
Why so strict? It has everything to do with the fact the Labor leader hasn’t had Covid-19 yet, unlike Scott Morrison. The nightmare scenario for the Albo camp is the Labor leader losing a week of campaigning to be stuck in isolation, while a Covid-free Morrison is free to roam the country.
Still, it hasn’t taken long for some members of the gallery to put up resistance to the new rules. Diary already hears that a fight has ensued between the Labor media team and a senior TV journalist who was only double-vaxxed and wanted to stay that way.
Suffice to say, the reporter doesn’t appear to have won the argument. Our most recent mail is that she’s planning to rush out to get her booster this week, before the campaign gets called, just so she can board the Albo bus.
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Hack’s ‘dietary requirement’: medium-rare steaks
On Scott Morrison’s campaign bus, meanwhile, things appear to be more relaxed when it comes to mandates, possibly because the PM has just got through his own bout of Omicron.
Diary made inquiries about the rules on the ScoMo bus after we learnt of the Labor bus mask mandates. And it seems the PM’s bus will simply be following state and territory rules, rather than imposing any mandates of its own.
There’ll be no need for proof of vaccination, tests or any form of mask on the ScoMo bus. Any reporters who come down with Covid will simply be ditched from the bus at whatever point they happen to catch it.
Some of the media types going on the bus are, however, sounding a touch spoiled. Diary understands that one hack, asked about their dietary requirement, requested “rare to medium-rare steaks”. We’re told that request, alas, won’t be fulfilled.
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Pauline profits from ‘mean girls’ merchandise
Labor may be hoping that the “mean girls” affair involving the late Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching wouldn’t stick for long – but Pauline Hanson is about to make sure that the saga continues to have some adhesive qualities.
We’ve learnt that Hanson is embarking on an innovative fundraising drive to help bankroll her election campaign. And the One Nation leader has just decided that the sale of “Mean Girls” stickers is a winning formula to make some serious campaign dollars.
Anthony Albanese hasn’t has Covid-19. So there are strict rules for travelling on his election bus. But one TV journo isn’t getting jabbed quietly.
Diary has obtained images of the Mean Girls merchandise, featuring uncanny caricatures of Penny Wong, Kristina Keneally and Katy Gallagher, as featured in Hanson’s wildly popular South Park-style cartoon series, Please Explain.
The trio helped a recent episode of the series to go viral, when they featured as a loud three-woman cheer squad for Anthony Albanese in the wake of the Kitching saga. It also featured a slurring and snoring US President Joe Biden.
So popular was the episode that Hanson was motivated to roll out a mass print run of the stickers on the One Nation website at $2 a pop. They feature Wong, Keneally and Gallagher with the caption in block letters: “PLEASE EXPLAIN MEAN GIRLS”.
Please Explain is already becoming a serious money spinner for Hanson. The cartoon series – produced for Hanson by Melbourne animation house Stepmates – has regularly attracted half a million hits a week across YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
And that’s giving Hanson plenty of other merchandising opportunities, including limited edition posters, stubby holders and even a Please Explain gin.
Diary hears Hanson has just sold out a limited edition series of 1000 signed and numbered posters – which she has personally signed at $50 a pop — that features the entire cast of the cartoon series, including Wong, Scott Morrison, Bob Katter, Peter Dutton, a beetroot-headed Barnaby Joyce, Albanese, Adam Bandt, Greta Thunberg and Bill Shorten. The stubby holder, at $10 a pop, with the identical caricatures is also flying out the door.
But it’s Hanson’s $99 a bottle Please Explain gin that looks like becoming her biggest campaign money spinner. The One Nation leader has rolled out 5000 bottles of the Sunshine Coast-made gin especially for the campaign, with the label featuring Hanson, Katter, Morrison, Albanese and Bandt.
So profitable is the cartoon series becoming that its run has now been extended to well beyond the coming federal election.
One party source told Diary: “Let’s just say it’s more than paying for itself.”
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Could Ferguson and Jones take over 7.30?
When Justin Stevens starts in his new job as the ABC’s head of news on Monday, he won’t have to look far to find his top priority: 7.30, the show he ran for four years until last week.
Following his appointment to become the ABC’s second most powerful executive – as exclusively foreshadowed by your diarist in The Australian last Tuesday – Stevens has no time to lose after a six-month recruitment process.
And his most urgent order of business when he settles into his new office in Ultimo will be to find replacements on 7.30 for the show’s two most important roles: a new host after Leigh Sales leaves in June, and a new executive producer in his old office.
No one would know better than Stevens the challenges that come with running the ABC’s flagship nightly current affairs program.
For the hosting gig, there has been speculation about Insiders host David Speers, Q+A’s Stan Grant, 7.30’s own Laura Tingle and ABC Radio Melbourne morning host Virginia Trioli.
But one intriguing whisper around Ultimo would offer a “package deal”: ex-Four Corners presenter Sarah Ferguson and her husband, former Q+A host Tony Jones, as host and executive producer of 7.30.
Among ABC insiders, Ferguson has long been considered an obvious heir apparent to take over 7.30 whenever Sales chose to leave. Ferguson filled in for six months when Sales was on maternity leave in 2014.
For the past three years, Ferguson has been unable to take up her proposed position as the ABC’s Beijing bureau chief, so she has temporarily based herself with Jones in Washington. There she has filed on a diverse range of stories, from the Capitol riots to travelling in Ukraine last month to file a story for Four Corners on the Russian invasion.
And who has been her producer on those stories? Tony Jones.
Ferguson and Jones both need a regular ABC gig after their proposed move from Australia to China was thwarted by rapidly deteriorating relations between the two countries.
Bringing them to 7.30 would be mutually beneficial for the new news director and the ABC power couple. It would give 7.30 a respected team while finding a worthy gig for two stars.
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Clive Palmer’s longest-ever political ad
In the original Crocodile Dundee, Paul Hogan uttered words to the effect of: “That’s not a knife. This is a knife.”
Now Clive Palmer would appear to be offering his own unique twist on that catchphrase with an unprecedented, feature-length ad that he’s planning to dwarf all others during the federal election campaign.
Diary can reveal the United Australia Party boss has convinced the three commercial free-to-air TV networks – Seven, Nine and Ten – to screen the longest political ad ever on Australian TV, seemingly kickstarting his plans to spend $100m in advertising during the election campaign.
However, the Palmer camp apparently don’t see this spend as a party political ad but rather as a “documentary” to talk up his contribution, economic and otherwise, to the nation.
Palmer wants the public to know a bit more about his life story and vision for Australia, and has decided the only way to do it is to make a 45-minute production – or effectively an hour of commercial TV programming once even more network ads are taken into account.
Apparently, no expense has been spared on the production to tell his story.
Nine sources have confirmed to Diary that Palmer has booked an hour of daytime TV on one of its multichannels, with a final decision to be made on whether that channel will be 9Go or 9Gem. The sources are also adamant that they will run a critical editorial eye over the Palmer “documentary” before they air it.
We understand Seven has also come to a similar decision, with a plan to run the ad on either 7Two or 7mate after 9pm in either April or May. Meanwhile, Ten is currently finalising a deal for a likely late night slot, with its editorial bosses currently conducting their due diligence on its content before slotting it in.
The cost of a commercial hour of programming, even on a multi-channel outside of prime time, is considerable, potentially setting back Palmer at least a large six-figure sum for each screening. Nothing like an election campaign to boost media revenues!
Meanwhile, Sky News is understood to have knocked back the 45-minute ad, but are apparently more than happy to screen Palmer’s regular shorter ads.
The fact that the commercial networks are screening such a long political ad by Palmer establishes a precedent that the Liberal and Labor parties could try to follow.
But with lower ad budgets than Palmer, would they consider feature-length ads a good investment?
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Brisbane set for first leaders’ debate
The federal election campaign may not have started yet, but a first leaders’ debate is already taking shape.
Diary understands negotiations are already well under way between Sky News and high-level political officials about holding a Sky/Courier Mail People’s Forum between Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese in Brisbane, to be moderated by Sky’s chief news anchor, Kieran Gilbert.
The timing would be for the “early days of the campaign”, our spies tell us, with 100 undecided voters to be chosen by Q&A Market Research (which, in case you were wondering, has zero to do with the Thursday night ABC show that shares the same name).
If the Brisbane debate proceeds, it will be a repeat of the pivotal May 2019 Sky People’s Forum at the Gabba between Morrison and Bill Shorten, moderated by then-Sky political editor David Speers. During that debate, the PM at one point got up close and personal with the then-Labor leader, telling him to “look me in the eye” to promise he wasn’t going to raise taxes. Shorten famously replied to the PM: “You’re a classic space invader!”
The Morrison camp were happy with how that debate went. Meanwhile, in December, Albanese accepted when Gilbert challenged him on air to commit to a Brisbane debate with the PM on Sky: “I’ll commit to that,” he told Gilbert. “I want to see that debate take place.”
The Gabba is once more believed to be one of two favoured venues for the mooted debate this month, along with the Brisbane Broncos Leagues Club, which hosted a 2013 leaders’ debate between Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott.
If the Brisbane debate goes ahead early on, as is being negotiated, there are hopes it could open the way for a second People’s Forum hosted by Gilbert later on in Western Sydney.
In May 2016, a Sky/Daily Telegraph People’s Forum was held between Malcolm Turnbull and Shorten at the Windsor RSL club in the seat of Macquarie, which in 2019 became one of the most marginal seats in the country, held by Labor’s Susan Templeman by 0.38 per cent. Don’t rule out a repeat in 2022, as both leaders scrounge for crucial western Sydney votes.
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Seven boss’s texts to Eddie McGuire
Seven boss James Warburton was cock-a-hoop when his fierce commercial free-to-air rivals, Nine and Ten, made the decision not to run Wednesday night’s Shane Warne memorial on their main channels outside Melbourne.
Warburton was the only network executive to screen the service nationally on his main channel.
That call paid off handsomely. The Warne memorial – ironically hosted by prominent Nine identities like Eddie McGuire, Andy Lee and Sam Newman – rated a whopping 829,000 viewers across the five cities, whacking the other networks which didn’t run the memorial nationally.
Diary is now told that a thrilled Warburton sent a text to McGuire, as the producer of the service, on the night.
But we hear he was even more effusive in a second text to McGuire the next day, with the words: “Not only was it a brilliant memorial, but the ratings were fabulous.”
When we reached McGuire on Sunday, he confirmed the texts: “Yes, I received wonderful letters from network bosses on the night, including James.
“But I did receive another one from him the next day. He seemed to enjoy the ratings as much as the show!”
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