WA Premier Mark McGowan could barely hide his glee last week when he revealed he had erected an “Eddie-proof Fence” (as one satirist put it) in the West. He had rejected the application by Eddie McGuire to enter the state to film footy shows, a special season of Hot Seat and other specials.
“He’s not happy, he wanted to come in,” the WA Premier said. “Unfortunately, Eddie can’t come. He’s not essential for the game so he has to stay in Melbourne.”
However, the double-vaxxed McGuire, while accepting the umpire’s decision, warns McGowan not to be a “smart alec” about it. He says he was more than willing to serve out two weeks of hotel quarantine — but was ultimately “singled out” by McGowan, despite plenty of other eastern states journalists being allowed in to attend the finals.
McGuire tells Diary that decision will prove costly for Perth’s relatively small TV and film industry.
“Take it away from the clickbait hoo-ha and the politics of envy in trying to paint me as some entitled bloke from the eastern states – the bottom line is they’ve cost themselves millions in income for its film and TV industry,” he tells us. “It shows yet again that with the stroke of a pen, premiers are prepared to single out people for political expediency.”
McGuire reveals he had plans for a hectic production schedule while in Perth. They included a Grand Final edition of the Footy Show at either Burswood or the Perth Entertainment Centre, a special Perth-themed run for Nine’s Hot Seat, and even advanced discussions with WA Tourism to promote “footy tourism” for the state, centred on the Grand Final. All are now shelved.
But despite his annoyance at the “hoo-ha” over him, McGuire fully accepts the principle that McGowan has the right to choose who comes into the state, and won’t be shedding any tears.
“I’ve moved on,” he tells Diary. “I’ve not asked for any favours, and was willing to do the same as anyone. I totally accept their decision. But all I would say is: don’t get up in a press conference and be a smart alec about it!”
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Sales trolls Palaszczuk amidst 7.30 boycott
Annastacia Palaszczuk sent shockwaves across the nation last week when she played the “what about the kids?” card as the latest excuse not to open her borders.
Palaszczuk’s argument for trashing any hopes of a co-ordinated national strategy for living with Covid-19 was: “You open up this state and you let the virus in here, every child under 12 is vulnerable.”
But as many in the media noted, Palaszczuk’s ultra-cautious fearmongering contrasted with her very cavalier decision to let 100 WAGs and families of NRL stars into Queensland for the rugby league finals.
To put it bluntly, rugby league stars and their nearest and dearest would be the last people to deserve special treatment with Covid-19 quarantine given their appalling record with constant bubble breaches during 2021 that have frequently jeopardised the entire NRL season.
It was the double standards in Palaszczuk’s throwing out the welcome mat to the NRL while shutting out the rest of the Australia that last week attracted the scrutiny of the news media’s highest-profile Queenslander: ABC 7.30 host Leigh Sales.
Indeed, there’s no love lost between Sales and Palaszczuk, amid what Diary hears is a boycott by the Queensland Premier that has specifically targeted the 7.30 presenter.
When news broke that the NRL WAGs could come into Queensland when everyone else couldn’t, Sales turned on the sarcasm: “This must be good news because if the ‘health advice’ allows it, then obviously the regular Australian without sport or celebrity connections who’s fully vaxxed and had a negative Covid test will now be allowed into Qld to see their family?”
This must be good news because if the “health advice†allows it, then obviously the regular Australian without sport or celebrity connections who’s fully vaxed and had a negative covid test will now be allowed into Qld to see their family? https://t.co/pHPNdx5HqT
— Leigh Sales (@leighsales) August 30, 2021
Palaszczuk eventually apologised for letting in the WAGs and the cricket teams. But Sales’ salvo was just the start of a series of tweets and retweets to highlight the plight of many Queenslanders who, like herself, can’t return to their home state to see their close family.
Among the multiple subjects in Sales’s Twitter feeds last week was the plight of three-year old Queenslander Memphis Francis (stuck in NSW with his grandparents) who before another backflip was unable to be reunited with his parents, and a further case involving a fellow Queenslander banned from returning home after attending her mum’s funeral in Victoria.
By Thursday, when Palaszczuk claimed there’d be 2240 deaths in Queensland “each month” if she opened up with 70 per cent vaccination levels, Sales had finally had enough, retweeting the Premier’s claim in order to call her out for dodgy maths. “The Qld Premier is suggesting almost as many people will die in Australia as currently die in the UK every month, a country with well over double the population, living in way higher density with few social distancing or mask restrictions,” Sales posted.
Below, the Qld Premier is suggesting almost as many people will die in Australia as currently die in the UK every month, a country with well over double the population, living in way higher density with few social distancing or mask restrictions. https://t.co/QSKLe3AMU2
— Leigh Sales (@leighsales) September 2, 2021
Since the pandemic took off at the start of last year, the Queensland Premier has not agreed to be interviewed by Sales – but not for want of trying. Diary is told there have been countless requests by 7.30 throughout 2020 and 2021.
Palaszczuk’s only foray onto 7.30 this year was in late June, where the Premier courted controversy yet again, echoing her chief health officer Jeannette Young’s now-infamous “do not get the AstraZeneca vaccine” warning to under-40s.
But on that occasion, Sales was on mid-year leave, with Laura Tingle temporarily occupying the 7.30 chair in her absence. Coincidence?
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The great FitzSimons quest for media domination
For those who think two members of the FitzSimons/Wilkinson clan in the media is never enough, good news: two more are now in the mix.
Two of the three children of Peter FitzSimons and Lisa Wilkinson made big splashes during the week, in what looks like an all-out family pitch for media domination.
A “very proud” Wilkinson revealed last Monday that the couple’s only daughter, Billi FitzSimons, had landed a job as political reporter at The Daily Aus, which bills itself as “Australia’s leading social-first news service”.
And the younger FitzSimons wasn’t wasting any time in making a name for herself. By Friday, she had scooped her famous mum with no less than Wilkinson’s best contact: former Liberal staffer and #MeToo advocate Brittany Higgins.
In what was badged as an “exclusive” Instagram interview with FitzSimons, Higgins lashed out at the federal government’s new sexual harassment bill, saying an opportunity for positive change had been “denied”.
Last year, the younger FitzSimons (then still working as staff writer for women and lifestyle website Mamamia) had publicly expressed her awkwardness about comparing her fledgling media career with that of her famous mother.
“When my mum was 21, she was the youngest ever editor-in-chief of a well-known Australian magazine,” she wrote. “When I was 21, I was delighted to be working an entry-level job at a media company … I hated when people asked me if I was ‘following in my mum’s footsteps’. Because I would hate for myself – or others – to put that pressure on me to replicate such a stellar career. I could never.”
Billi was following the footsteps of brother Louis, who starred in the 2018 season of Nine’s Ninja Warrior.
By mid-week, their eldest brother, Jake FitzSimons, was filing his first column for The Sydney Morning Herald, his father’s long-time employer.
It was a first-person piece on Jake’s chronic phobia about needles, and how he nobly overcame it to do his bit for society and receive his first Covid-19 vaccination.
Very proud.
— Lisa Wilkinson (@Lisa_Wilkinson) August 30, 2021
And their Insta account is particularly good for quick hits of daily news. ðŸ‘ðŸ‘ðŸ‘👠https://t.co/uuTVFoA7IV
Jake revealed the stigma attached to it: “I was told that a phobia was cowardly … That if I was afraid of needles, I should probably begin identifying as a woman, as though that were some kind of terrible insult.”
But there were also traces of his parents’ oft-stated fury about the federal government’s delayed vaccination program, with FitzSimons the younger revealed: “I was as angry as could be about the bungled rollout.”
The apple, it seems, doesn’t fall far from the tree.
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Did The Project ‘ambush’ key Gladys adviser?
“Ever wondered what Gladys Berejiklian is really thinking?” With that question, Hamish Macdonald of Ten’s The Project introduced what turned out to be a very tricky interview for the NSW Premier’s recently-departed head of strategy, Ehssan Veiszadeh.
But the question being asked around NSW government circles last week was rather more colourful. With expletives taken out, it was: “Why would a key Gladys backroom player do a tell-all on, of all places, The Project?”
There was “bemusement” in the NSW government as Veiszadeh squirmed through an interview on The Project with Lisa Wilkinson, Berejiklian’s most vocal media critic.
Veiszadeh started by talking confidently about his time with the Premier. But his squirming started when he was forced onto the back foot by a series of curveballs from The Project panel, starting with whether Berejiklian had labelled Scott Morrison as “evil and a bully”, had there been “backgrounding going on by the Prime Minister’s office against this particular Premier”, and culminating in the last question: “Do you think the PM can be a bit of a bully?”
As NSW breaks another record, Gladys Berejiklian is vowing to show the rest of the country what living with COVID looks like. Up until three months ago, Ehssan Veiszadeh was the Premier’s Director of Strategy. He’s now the deputy CEO of The Committee for Sydney. #TheProjectTVpic.twitter.com/zmy9beCOJx
— The Project (@theprojecttv) August 29, 2021
A wincing Veiszadeh, now the deputy CEO of the Committee for Sydney, admitted there were “tensions”, but was virtually laughed off set by The Project’s hosts when he started his response to the last question with: “I’ll give a politicians’ answer …”
Wilkinson replied: “When we get politicians’ answers, we don’t believe them.”
Veiszadeh’s chat with Berejiklian’s loudest media critic left him with fences to mend in Macquarie Street. As one salty government source noted: “If you’ve got to say you’re a powerbroker, chances are you aren’t.”
But sources close to Veiszadeh were claiming on the weekend he was “ambushed” by The Project. The interview was supposedly meant to be about “Covid and opening up”, they said, rather than personal questions on Berejiklian and Morrison.
A Ten spokeswoman declined to comment.
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Gina’s Paspaley jewels for Paralympians
Australia’s heroic Paralympic swimmers who have been so prominent on our TV screens in recent days have more to gain than just the $20,000 per gold medal that PM Scott Morrison announced last week to match the rewards for successful Olympians.
Diary is reliably informed mining billionaire Gina Rinehart, already a huge financial supporter of the Australian Dolphins and other athletes at both a Paralympic and Olympic level, is taking it one step further than ScoMo.
Rinehart is offering Paspaley jewellery not only to gold medallists, but to every single Paralympian swimmer who has competed in the pool in Tokyo.
And from what insiders tell us, a further incentive has been the jewel in the crown to incentivise Dolphins members to make it onto the Paralympic podium. Competitors, we hear, will win extra baubles if they take home medals. That’s taking it up a notch from the Rio Paralympics, where Diary hears Gina gave female swimmers a Paspaley jewel and men a laptop each for competing.
Rinehart is also quietly providing direct financial assistance to many athletes in Tokyo. For the last seven years, the Dolphins’ patron has also been offering invaluable financial support specifically to Swimming Australia’s Paralympic program.
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Quizzing Karl about his Today meltdown
Nine has decided morale-boosting exercises are in order to try and get socially distanced folk at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on the same page as everyone from TV personalities to radio broadcasters, and their behind-the-scenes armies.
And what better to get the team spirit pumping than a trivia quiz hosted by two of Nine’s naughtiest boys: Karl Stefanovic and Richard “Dickie” Wilkins?
Nine invited its staff to clock off early on Friday afternoon “with your brain and a beverage” and roll up on Zoom for a Karl/Dickie interrogation.
We’re told it was so popular that latecomers couldn’t get onto the call because the Zoom 300-person limit was exceeded.
While Stefanovic and Wilkins were the quizmasters, Diary hears it was actually Karl himself who faced the trickiest question of the entire event. Assisted by a bit of Dutch courage, one brave Nine staffer dared to ask Stefanovic what really happened on the night of the 2009 Logies, when he famously turned up intoxicated on the Today show the morning after.
Stefanovic good-naturedly gave the full story: he’d gone and got “a few drinks”, then partied on in “somebody’s room” until the wee hours, and then thought he’d been asleep for hours when his alarm went off and he rolled for his legendary Today show appearance — where he struggled to say anything coherent.
We’re told the Karl and Dickie quiz was part of “Club Iso”, a comprehensive Nine staff entertainment program of Zoom events drawing on key network personalities — even including book readings from Andy Lee and Lego sessions with Lego Masters’ Brickman. But next Friday afternoon’s Zoom activity for Club Iso will be a blockbuster: a “plant care” session hosted by Nine’s on-air Gardening Gurus. Who needs Club Med?
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Tom Gleeson: carry-over Gold Logie champion
Tom Gleeson enters an epic third year as Gold Logie carry-over champion, after Annastacia Palaszczuk’s border closures officially killed her own dream of holding TV’s night of nights at The Star casino on the Gold Coast on November 28.
TV Week and the Queensland government on the weekend confirmed the worst kept secret in Australian media: that the Logies were off for yet another year.
And didn’t Gleeson love it! He immediately changed his official Twitter bio to read: “Gold Logie winner 3 years running”, and posting a photo of himself holding the statue with a big thumbs up. Not bad for a one-time winner.
The official reason for the cancellation? Lockdowns and “travel border restrictions”. And whose travel border restrictions played the biggest role? None other than Palaszczuk’s. Ironic, really.
The final straw was tens of thousands in imminent deposits from Seven, Nine and Ten due on hotels on the Gold Coast, including The Star in Broadbeach and the Sheraton Mirage at Main Beach. With no prospect of border changes, a decision couldn’t be put off.
A Zoom Logies had already been dismissed, because the event is dependent on Palaszczuk’s generous funding to stage it in person on Queensland’s Glitter Strip.
Diary understands TV Week and Tourism Events Queensland was offering networks juicy incentives: up to $130,000 each in subsidies as a carrot to bring their best talent to the November event.
Despite this, the networks won’t mourn the lost loot. We’re told the event’s terrible late-year timing was making it hard for them to lure their biggest stars anyway, because of the end-of-year TV production hiatus.
Diary now hears a mid-year Logies will return in 2022.
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