One of The Sydney Morning Herald’s most high-profile and controversial columnists, outspoken architecture and environment advocate Elizabeth Farrelly, had her 30-year run with the newspaper abruptly ended on Sunday.
Farrelly took to Facebook shortly after 4pm on Sunday to sensationally reveal her “termination” from the paper and to accuse the SMH of a “ruthless king hit” on her career.
But in the first significant action taken by new SMH editor Bevan Shields (who is still tying up loose ends in the UK), the paper made the move after claiming Farrelly had not declared she had been “registered as a candidate” for the Labor Party in the “Strathfield local government elections” in Sydney’s inner-west.
Farrelly ultimately didn’t run as a candidate on the Labor Party ticket in Strathfield. But on the day of the elections, she wrote a column in the SMH that was heavily critical of Liberal Party candidates in the Strathfield area – prompting the paper to issue an “editor’s note” declaring her candidacy in the election as pertinent to that column.
Then on Sunday, Shields made a five-minute call to Farrelly announcing the termination to his marquee Saturday columnist – prompting a furious and very public reaction from Farrelly.
She wrote on Facebook: “Today, after a working relationship lasting more than three decades, my time with the Sydney Morning Herald came to an abrupt end,” she began. “According to the five-minute out-of-the-blue phone call I received from the new editor on the other side of the world, this termination is due to an apparent lack of transparency on my part.”
Farrelly confirmed that “desperate to help end the neoliberal reign of wretchedness, I joined the ALP mid-year and provided some planning advice at the one meeting I attended”.
“There was brief chatter about my making a possible tilt at a state or federal seat or perhaps joining the local council. It was unresolved and I was only vaguely interested but, on the last day before registrations closed … simply to keep my options open, I registered my interest online. I was not preselected for the Labor federal candidate, nor for the Labor Council ticket, so I did not run in the recent council election.”
She did admit she had agreed to have a Labor “placard on my front lawn for a couple of weeks and to hand out on polling day for two hours”.
However, she added that “it did not cross my mind to tell the Herald of my registration as a potential candidate”, conceding: “This was an oversight on my part.”
Farrelly also remains adamant there was “no undisclosed conflict of interest of which my readers should have been made aware”.
She has also detailed part of the conversation with Shields on Sunday, claiming he told her that he had “no option but to terminate my long-term engagement”.
Farrelly concluded her note: “I’d be dishonest not to admit that this new change in direction scares me to death. On the other hand, it’s time for a change and I am determined to transform the Herald’s ruthless king-hit into a new opportunity. Watch this space.” The SMH’s national executive editor, Tory Maguire, said late on Sunday: “The editor’s note speaks for itself.’’
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‘No clue’: Palaszczuk’s border flip-flopping
As Queensland makes its long-anticipated move to save the state’s Christmas and open the borders on Monday, can nervous holiday-makers be guaranteed Annastacia Palaszczuk isn’t planning to lock them in — or out — over the holiday period?
The answer depends on which breakfast show the Queensland Premier appears on.
During a frenzied run of four consecutive interviews on breakfast TV last Tuesday, Palaszczuk gave a colourful array of answers Diary imagines won’t do anything for the confidence of tens of thousands of Australians who have already put down their hard-earned on flights and accommodation.
When the Queensland Premier started shortly after 8am with an interview with ABC News Breakfast host Lisa Millar, she left no room for doubt.
Millar, a fellow Queenslander with plenty of skin in the game, pointedly asked Palaszczuk whether people could “trust” that “you won’t shut the border again”. The Premier’s answer was unequivocal: “We’re not shutting the border,” she told Millar bluntly.
But a mere few minutes later, in more convivial interviews with Today and Sunrise, Palaszczuk left herself plenty of wriggle room on her supposedly iron-clad commitment to Millar.
Nine’s Sylvia Jeffreys and Seven’s Michael Usher, co-hosting Today and Sunrise in the absence of regular hosts Ally Langdon and David Koch respectively, both asked whether lockdowns and border closures were now a thing of the past in Queensland.
But in both cases, Palaszczuk’s answers was making Queensland holiday-makers nervous once more.
Asked by Jeffreys whether lockdowns were now over, Palaszczuk twice replied: “Well, we hope so,” before quickly changing the subject to praise Queenslanders for getting the jab. Hardly a Queensland government guarantee!
When Usher on Sunrise later asked: “Premier, lockdowns, are they done-and-dusted?”, Palaszczuk was appearing even less certain: “Ummm, we hope there’s no localised lockdowns,” she started, before eventually conceding there were “circumstances” where “we may have to think of it”. Oh dear. Palaszczuk’s guarantee to Millar didn’t seem to be lasting long at all.
By the time she braved making a rare appearance on Sky News with Peter Stefanovic shortly after 8.30am, the only certainty was that things were getting more uncertain about borders.
Stefanovic asked her: “Will this be it? Will this be the end of the closed border?” By this time, promises were out the window. “Well I hope so. I mean I think everyone hopes so!” Palaszczuk said.
As one senior Queensland political operative put it: “It’s clear she has no clue what she’ll do if there’s a Covid outbreak over Christmas.”
On the basis of those four breakfast TV appearances last Tuesday morning, any interstate visitors who’ve put down money on that Gold Coast Airbnb may have to make sure they’ve got a watertight refund policy … just in case.
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Supersized Insiders ahead of election
Too much David Speers is never enough. It turns out the ABC’s Insiders is to embark on a major expansion to capitalise on the additional interest in politics ahead of the 2022 federal election.
Diary understands the ABC’s flagship Sunday morning show will upsize from an hour to 90 minutes as soon as the election is called, with a 9am to 10.30am run time for at least the duration of the campaign.
It’s early days, we’re told, but the extended Insiders will definitely happen. Planning is already underway for additional segments to fill the extra half-hour.
One option, we hear, is to add a second political interview with Speers to accompany the main interview that is the show’s staple each week. That would allow both main sides of politics to potentially have their say on each episode.
Another likely move is to add some more levity to the campaign, with satirical segments almost certain to beef-up the show. One option may be to give a greater creative rein to the comedic segments of satirist Huw Parkinson. ABC Radio Melbourne breakfast host Sammy J has also made a number of skits for Insiders and may be called on again.
Diary hears a further plan, if borders remain open, could be to send crews to crucial marginal seat battles around the country.
The show had planned to visit a number of seats this year, but the constant uncertainty of border closures meant that its only road trip was to the Tasmanian seat of Bass. But we’re told there are plans to cover marginal seat battles in NSW and Queensland, such as in Sydney’s Wentworth between Liberal Dave Sharma and independent Allegra Spender.
Part of the “supersize Insiders” push is because it has been a news and current affairs ratings success story in 2021. Its last show of the year rated a combined 382,000 capital city viewers across two channels, well clear of the weekend editions of Sunrise and Today.
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Albo cursed by PVO’s ‘kiss of death’
It’s the tweet that has Anthony Albanese quaking in his boots, and supporters of Scott Morrison cheering.
Ten political editor Peter “Kiss of Death” van Onselen has finally jumped aboard the Albo express, with a big call on Albanese’s prospects of becoming the next prime minister.
After this latest Newspoll you’d have to say it’s now Labor’s election to lose. Ahead and with the momentum. They are favourites now. #auspol
— Peter van Onselen (@vanOnselenP) December 5, 2021
A late-night tweet by van Onselen a week ago — straight after The Australian’s latest Newspoll appeared — sent a shudder through the entire Labor movement.
“After this latest Newspoll you’d have to say it’s now Labor’s election to lose. They are favourites now. #auspol”
Why would such a positive tweet by van Onselen about Albo’s soaring prospects cause such deep concern in the Labor Party? For the uninitiated, PVO has a long and celebrated history as the kiss of death on political leaders going back nearly 15 years. As a chuckling van Onselen confides to Diary: “Albo has been pleading with me to never shift my prediction that Scott Morrison would win the election.”
But with van Onselen’s revised prediction, there have been some long faces in Labor.
PVO’s run of outs as a tipster started in 2007, when he confidently predicted Kevin Rudd couldn’t beat John Howard – allegedly because he had “no substance”.
Two years later, PVO wrote a political obituary for Malcolm Turnbull that predicted he would never come back after losing the Liberal leadership to Tony Abbott – only to be proven wrong six years later when Turnbull seized the prime ministership in a party room coup.
Then in 2010, PVO predicted Julia Gillard would win a “comfortable majority” over Tony Abbott. Wrong again: Gillard was forced to handle a crippling hung parliament that ultimately played a big role in her demise.
In the lead-up to the 2013 Liberal landslide election win, PVO even described Abbott as “unelectable”.
And who can forget his most famous prediction: that Morrison couldn’t win the 2019 federal election. As he told Ten’s Hugh Riminton back then: “There’s no way that Scott Morrison can win it and I’m happy to have that replayed time and time again to my shame if he does win it.”
Replayed time and again, it most definitely was.
This time, van Onselen insisted on the weekend that he was still marginally predicting a Morrison win. “But I just think Albo is now the favourite.”
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Zali profile soars after Gladys push
Until this month, it was a pretty quiet year in the media for Zali Steggall, the former Olympic skier who in 2019 famously deposed ex-PM Tony Abbott from the Sydney northern beaches seat of Warringah.
But it was remarkable to see what the fleeting (and as of Friday, binned) prospect of a Gladys Berejiklian run for the seat was able to do to motivate a politician to become very visible in the media, very quickly.
All of a sudden last week, no TV appearance was off limits for Steggall. Even an interview on Sky News was deemed acceptable for the newly-visible Zali, allowing her to use Berejiklian’s woes at ICAC as part of a broader swipe at the federal government’s alleged unwillingness to launch a federal integrity commission.
The numbers tell the story. Research by media monitoring agency Streem for Diary shows her media presence skyrocketed early last week, as speculation about Berejiklian’s candidacy for Warringah reached a frenzy.
Steggall, who had been all but invisible in the media for much of the year, saw her media mentions soar by an astonishing 845 per cent in the first week or so of December compared to the rest of 2021, in terms of average metropolitan media items per day.
Steggall deflected the toughest questions from Sky’s Peter Stefanovic that pointed to suggestions from critics she hadn’t achieved anything in Warringah during the last term.
“I think it sort of speaks for itself they are trying so hard to win back Warringah if I’ve been so ineffective,” she stated. The most sympathetic run for Steggall last week undoubtedly came on the friendly turf of Ten’s The Project, where Lisa Wilkinson, Berejiklian’s chief media critic, happened to be back from holidays to helm the weekday show.
Steggall clearly enjoyed appearing on The Project last Monday a lot. So much so, that she returned to the show just 48 hours later.
In the safe zone of the Ten panel show last week, Steggall was given every opportunity to lash out at the Liberal Party’s enthusiastic but ultimately failed backroom moves to recruit Berejiklian for Warringah.
Steggall was asked by Waleed Aly that, given Berejiklian’s recent woes in ICAC, “are you surprised that Scott Morrison has thrown his support behind her?”.
That gave Steggall the opportunity to say it was “really inappropriate and wrong that the Prime Minister and senior ministers are casting doubt over the importance and the work the NSW ICAC are doing”.
But with the pressure now off Steggall, after the “Berejiklian for Warringah” push was officially shelved on Friday, will she be able to disappear from the media once more?
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Molan off NRL under new Nine deal
Nine’s Sydney and Brisbane sports anchor Erin Molan has signed a new contract with Nine. But Diary understands her new deal will be a downsized and less lucrative one, with her days as anchor of Nine’s NRL coverage finally at an end.
Moving forward, we’re told Molan’s revised role with Nine will be simply to present the sport in the 6pm Sydney news on Friday and Saturday nights.
Diary hears the revision to Molan’s contract has nothing to do with her alleged issues with rugby league immortal and fellow commentator Andrew Johns, amid persistent speculation the pair actively avoid each other both on- and off-camera at Nine.
Instead, we’re assured Molan’s new deal is a reflection of a crazy work schedule between her two employers, Nine and Southern Cross Austereo, under her previous contract.
The industrious Molan has worked a gruelling seven days a week over the last year, getting up at 3am for her gig as co-host of the 2DayFM Morning Crew breakfast show (with Dave Hughes and Ed Kavalee) in Sydney, on top of her mainly night-time gigs on Nine.
Something, we’re told, had to give. Molan is said to be very keen to devote more attention to turning around the flagging ratings of the 2DayFM show in 2022. So that means at Nine, Molan is now solely employed in the newsroom.
Her heavy Sunday schedule at Nine had her hosting the Sunday Footy Show, and Nine’s 4pm NRL game the same day.
While Molan now gets her Sundays back, her Fridays will continue to be intense – starting at 3am with breakfast radio and ending shortly before 7pm when she reads the sports news on Nine. Molan couldn’t be reached, but Diary hears Danika Mason and James Bracey are now favourites to take her Sunday NRL shifts.
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Karvelas’s RN replacement named
With Patricia Karvelas landing Fran Kelly’s Radio National breakfast shift, that created another vacancy on Karvelas’s old drive shift which has just been filled.
Diary hears the winning candidate for the former Karvelas shift is something of a surprise: Sydney-based 7.30 investigative reporter Andy Park, who beat out other candidates believed to include The World Today host Sally Sara.
Park has had a varied career taking everything from music radio at Melbourne’s Fox FM, to news anchoring roles at SBS, reporting at The Age and in the international field for Foreign Correspondent.
Elsewhere at Radio National, The Australian’s ex-opinion editor Tom Switzer is to get a bigger platform. Switzer’s international affairs show Between the Lines will double in length, from 30 minutes to an hour next year.
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Ex-ABC news boss’s firm ‘no’ to BBC
With Gaven Morris wasting no time in preparing for his post-ABC career (heading to Bastion Consulting), Aunty’s departed news boss has confirmed one key rumour circulating around Ultimo: that he was indeed sounded out for the equivalent job in the UK — as news director of the BBC.
Morris’s answer to the preliminary overtures from the Beeb was an unequivocal no. When Diary caught him briefly while he was out lunching in his first week of post-ABC freedom, he told us: “I did have chats with people at the BBC, but it wasn’t for me. It was a job that was 10 times the size with 12 times the problems.”
Anyone taking on the BBC news director role now would be facing “the same challenge as the ABC had 10 years ago”, Morris told us.
“It (the BBC) has huge audience reach, but it’s a very slow bus to turn around. The ABC is ahead of the BBC on transformation.”
Taking on the BBC is not the type of task Morris says he is looking for at this stage of his career: “I’m looking for an easier life now – not a harder one.”
READ MORE: Ex-ABC news boss Gaven Morris back in business with digital transformation division at Bastion
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Fordham’s off-air help from Hadley
Nine Radio’s two ratings-leading Sydney shock jocks, 2GB’s breakfast host Ben Fordham and morning host Ray Hadley, have had their moments this year – not least when the two very publicly disagreed on air about ICAC’s treatment of Gladys Berejiklian.
But on their last day on air for 2021 on Friday, Fordham made a candid revelation: that Hadley has privately counselled the breakfast host off-air to help him out in finding his feet as Alan Jones’s replacement.
“What a lot of people wouldn’t know is the time that you’ve spent off-air in giving me some help and some assistance and some advice, and I really appreciate it …. You know I was absolutely scared stiff of coming into this job and sitting in this chair, and I can’t thank you enough.”
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