It’s nearly two months since Dan Andrews disappeared from the daily consciousness of Victorians to start his recovery from his now-famous tumble. But Diary is reliably informed that hasn’t stopped major news organisations in Melbourne from at least taking a peek at a bewildering array of rumours, conspiracy theories and outright inventions that have been peddled ever since sketchy details emerged on March 9 of Andrews suffering “vertebrae damage” after falling down “wet and slippery” steps while alone at a Mornington Peninsula holiday house.
It seems just about everyone in Melbourne has a fascination with gossiping about Dan’s accident, as Victorians suffer withdrawal symptoms about their currently nearly invisible Premier — who famously fronted the cameras every day for 120 consecutive days last year — and wait for him to return to work in June. And while Victoria eagerly anticipates Dan’s return from his sick bed, media types claim that faceless men and women not only from the Liberal side, but Labor as well, have been in touch with news organisations to fill the large void he has left by peddling mischief about what really happened on March 9.
Take just about any wild claim about the real story about what happened down on the Peninsula, and news organisations have heard it. The latest has been a supposed argument between Andrews and a high-profile Melbourne-based professional that allegedly resulted in both taking a tumble down the steps at yet another businessman’s house.
Meanwhile, over the two months, we’ve just about heard it all: barbecue accidents, altercations and full-on fisticuffs with a union official have all been mentioned at one time or another. But as one prominent print figure told us last week, the rumours — no matter how adamant the source — have one thing in common: they’ve always come up short. As the source puts it: “The tip-offs all seem to come up one step short. It’s always a friend of a friend, and you can never find the alleged witness.”
Meanwhile, a government source in Spring Street said: “These rumours are the normal smorgasbord of nonsense peddled by Opposition MPs. When you slip over, you slip over. There’s not one person on the record saying anything different.”
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Bowen ‘boned’ for Q+A diversity quota
The ABC’s Q+A has over the years had to face down repeated claims from the Coalition side of politics that it has leant to the left. But in the last few days, we hear it’s the Labor side of the political fence that’s cranky with Aunty’s flagship panel show.
Diary is told that Labor’s Chris Bowen, the man who could have been treasurer in a Shorten government, expressed his displeasure with Q+A after he was snubbed by the show. But what magnified the snub from Bowen’s perspective is that he was passed over in his capacity as Labor’s climate change spokesman for a Q+A episode titled “Climate, Politics and Fossil Fools”.
However, this column has since established that the main reason Bowen was excluded from the panel was for “gender diversity” reasons.
In a year where every Q+A episode has featured at least two female panellists and most have featured three or more, we hear Bowen was the wrong gender for that night’s episode.
Q+A host Hamish Macdonald claimed on last Thursday week’s edition of the show: “I should … point out that we invited four Labor frontbenchers on to the program tonight, and none of them agreed to come on.”
But Diary is told Bowen felt this statement implied that he was one of the frontbenchers invited, when he had received no such invitation.
We’re told that both Bowen himself and representatives from his office called the show after it screened, for a “please explain”.
Last Wednesday, the show issued a clarification with a cryptic tweet that made it clear that Bowen wasn’t one of the four Labor “frontbenchers” invited.
“On April 22, Q+A invited multiple Labor spokespeople to appear on its panel which discussed Australia’s climate policy,” the tweet read.
“Because of the range of voices needed to discuss various issues, Shadow Minister for Climate Change Chris Bowen was not among those approached to take part.”
Diary has confirmed that the main reason Bowen didn’t score an invitation was because the panel was already too stacked with male “voices”. That night’s main drawcard for Q+A was ex-PM Malcolm Turnbull, and also featured Andrew Liveris (the ex-Dow Chemical CEO) and Resources Minister Keith Pitt. We’re told that the Labor shadow cabinet ministers that Q+A tried for were female, including Penny Wong and Tanya Plibersek, but the show was unsuccessful in luring them. So Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young was apparently drafted in late to join Ten News First presenter Narelda Jacobs to both balance the male quotient and provide a left-of-centre voice on the panel, in lieu of a Labor presence.
An ABC spokesman told Diary on Sunday: “Every week, Q+A strives to ensure diversity across all areas.”
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‘Bruised’: ABC’s Jane Norman trolled for getting Pfizer jab
Jane Norman, the ABC’s federal political reporter, has had the most “bruising” of weeks after tweeting about receiving the coveted Pfizer COVID-19 jab in Canberra.
As Norman tells Diary: “I’ve had people on Twitter who have paid to promote a tweet saying that I’m a queue jumper, and people on Instagram have even called me a killer.”
By Friday, the trolling had finally resulted in Norman deleting all of her tweets.
It all started innocently enough when Norman received a tip-off and a hotline number from a Facebook mother’s group in Canberra, which pointed to an excess of supply of the Pfizer vaccine in the national capital on the Anzac Day holiday.
Norman decided to ring the hotline to see if the rumour was true.
“I assumed all phone calls are recorded, and told the operator: ‘My name is Jane Norman. I’m not in 1a or 1b (the highest priority vaccine recipient categories). Is it true that I can get an appointment?’ They said: ‘8.15pm sharp tonight’.”
Again, as a reporter who has covered COVID-19 extensively, Norman says she was vigilant in making sure she was able to receive the jab when she turned up at Canberra’s Garran vaccination clinic that night.
“The waiting room was full of young people, so I got the nurse and asked: ‘Why are we able to get the vaccine?’ The nurse said: ‘We had 25 no-shows before midday today’.”
It was also made clear to Norman that the vaccine would go to waste if unused, because the Pfizer jab has a quick expiry time once the multi-dose vial is opened.
Norman sent an email to her ABC colleagues in Canberra to let them know, and also tweeted on Monday that she had got her “first Pfizer vaccine” and that she was “very grateful” to receive it.
The next morning, she woke to learn she had “caused a stir” on social media. She posted a second tweet to clarify that she clearly informed health officials she “was not currently eligible” for the vaccine, but they still booked her in. However, the trolling continued.
“I feel genuinely bruised by it. I stupidly stuck my head above the parapet. I should never have tweeted,” she says.
Norman says she won’t make the same mistake again. “From now on, I’ll only use Twitter for news-gathering purposes or to promote a story,” she tells Diary.
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New John Ibrahim show to go global
A drama based on the life of prominent Kings Cross nightclub identity John Ibrahim is now set to take the world by storm.
The new show about Ibrahim will be called Last King of the Cross, and will spearhead Ten’s ambitious launch of a new paid streaming service in Australia named Paramount+, to be announced later this week.
But Diary can reveal that Ten’s giant parent company ViacomCBS has ambitions well beyond Australia for Ibrahim, with plans to launch Last King of the Cross onto the world stage via its own streaming platform in the US, where it will most likely screen in 2022.
After a fierce bidding war with other local and international rivals, most notably Nine’s Stan, Paramount+ won the rights to make the 10-part series out of Ibrahim’s local best-selling autobiography by the same name. And there are even plans to move beyond one season of Last King of the Cross if the first series is as successful, as many serialised crime dramas internationally have been.
The new Ibrahim show — billed as a Sopranos successor — will be the headline act when Ten announces the winter launch date for Paramount+ later in the week. Diary understands that while the show’s main cast will be made up of Australian actors, several support roles will be played by big-name US talent to help it appeal to an international audience. We’re even hearing that some of the Australian accents will be softened to ensure it gets a worldwide run. Adding interest is that the project will be Mark Fennessy’s big coming out after his shock departure as head of Endemol Shine Australia last year.
Ibrahim has been a lead character in TV drama once before, having been famously played by Firass Dirani in the 2010 instalment of Nine’s glossy Underbelly: The Golden Mile.
But Dirani won’t win the role this time, with the show to be a grittier take on Ibrahim’s life that focuses heavily on his relationship with his family, including high-profile brothers Fadi, Sam and Michael Ibrahim.
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Triple J’s 101 on how to scam insurers
Which Triple J producer’s genius idea was it to put to air a caller giving a “how to” guide on cheating insurance companies?
We’re not sure — but Diary is told the call is on the radar at the highest levels of the insurance industry, because of concerns the strange episode may encourage insurance fraud.
Last Thursday, a caller identified as “Todd” rang into a “Take it to the next level” segment on Triple J’s drive show, Hobba & Hing. And boy, did Todd take it to the next level, with the show giving him full rein to detail a downright criminal workers comp scam he had masterminded, involving fake invoices, a fake injury, a fake physiotherapist’s practice and a fake address.
In a nutshell, Todd’s friend was sick of his job and wanted an easy way out. “So he faked an injury to hopefully get workers comp,” Todd said.
“He came home and said: ‘I need you to be a physio.’ I said ‘What do you mean?’. (He said): ‘I just need you to have a fake physio studio that I can go to, to fix my fake injury’.”
At this point, the show’s hosts, Lewis Hobba and Michael Hing were laughing along as Todd delivered the manual on how to bludge off long-suffering policy holders who faithfully pay their premiums. “We spent quite a few hours making the logo and we made a fake physio studio and then we sent the insurance company bills for physio work to fix his fake injury … and they paid us. Eventually we had to stop because we didn’t know how much physio was actually required to fix the fake injury that he had faked at work.”
Todd did stress that his mate was “really good at faking it”, to raucous laughter from the hosts. Todd even said he came up with a fake address “in an industrial estate” to convince the insurers of the legitimacy of the 1997 scam.
Todd told Hobba & Hing that he eventually found physiotherapy wasn’t for him. “It seemed really difficult,” he said, before adding the kicker: “But it did pay well.” Quite.
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Roberts-Smith hires new help for epic court battle
Things are hotting up on the Ben Roberts-Smith front.
With his defamation case against Nine newspapers looming early next month, Diary has learnt that just in the last few days, Team BRS has hired corporate PR firm Citadel-Magnus, helmed by veteran spinners Peter Brookes, Helen McCombie and Brett Clegg, to spearhead his media dealings through the tricky defamation process.
Meanwhile, Clegg’s old firm, Cato & Clive is, we’re told, continuing to do work “at the periphery” for the Victoria Cross recipient, who has stood aside from his role as GM of Seven Queensland. But it’s Brookes and McCombie at Citadel who’ll now do the lion’s share of the work during the case.
Who’s paying the bill for all this high-profile help for Roberts-Smith? Insiders swear it won’t be Seven’s owner, Kerry Stokes.
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Uhlmann finally back in Canberra after cyber hack
The aftershocks of the earthquake that was the massive cyber attack against Nine in March have been well and truly felt in Canberra.
Diary is told Nine’s political editor Chris Uhlmann was only able to return to Canberra last week after spending three weeks doing his job from Melbourne, because the network’s operations in the national capital were so badly affected by the hack. Hardly an ideal preparation for next week’s crucial federal budget.
But there are finally some signs after five weeks that things may be starting to return to some semblance of normality for Nine’s TV operations.
Last Wednesday night, Nine produced its first bulletin out of Sydney since the cyber attack. It still had a back-up plan just in case, we’re told, keeping some staff in Melbourne for the bulletin, but by week’s end, most had filtered back to home cities after spending several weeks working remotely. In total, about 55 people from other capital cities also had to base in its Melbourne studio at various times to work with its local news operations there. The Melbourne operations, still powered by older technology, saved the day for Nine by avoiding catastrophic shutdowns that impacted its more whizzbang systems in other cities.
Meanwhile, both Nine’s pre-Today show 5am news and late night news are set to return to screens this week, after taking a break during the worst of the cyber hack. But it could still be months before all systems are fully restored.
Tonagh quits ABC board early
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland and an independent panel will now need to find a replacement for the ABC’s deputy chairman just months out from a federal election.
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