For four months, Annastacia Palaszczuk has been enjoying a post-election honeymoon bubble that seems to only accompany leaders who win three elections. But last week, the bubble emphatically burst.
A re-energised Brisbane press gallery — some members of which (perhaps unfairly) copped a bad rap in 2020 when they were recorded joking about asking her “Dorothy Dixers” during a campaign that won her a landslide victory — is showing Palaszczuk its teeth. And the Queensland Premier isn’t enjoying it.
Last Monday, there were no Dorothy Dixers in sight during a seemingly routine press briefing. Matters came to a head when Palaszczuk engaged in a fiery exchange with a number of Brisbane political reporters lasting several minutes.
Two, Seven’s Queensland political editor Patrick Lion and the Courier-Mail’s Jack McKay, copped the full brunt of the Premier’s anger — at a time that you might have expected Palaszczuk to still be basking in the glow of her new, longer four-year term.
What was firing her up? Repeated questioning about whether she used two personal email accounts, stacia1@bigpond.com and apbounce11@gmail.com, for government business, after their existence had been exposed the previous week.
It’s not hard to see what Lion, McKay and others were getting at. They’re the sorts of questions Hillary Clinton faced in the 2016 US election campaign about the “Emailgate” controversy, dealing with her use of private email accounts while secretary of state.
Palaszczuk could have silenced the press gallery with a simple “no” to their questions. After all, she had already claimed to the Queensland parliament back in 2017 that she’d never used a private email account for government business.
But straight answers were absent.
Instead, Palaszczuk went on the attack. “Patrick, if you have an allegation, put it to me,” she aggressively challenged Lion at one point. “What is your allegation?” She had similar words for McKay.
The Premier has finally admitted emails involving her private account are ministerial records. It raises more questions about her claim in Parliament that she didn't use private email for official purposes. https://t.co/VZ3A1cpmr5#7NEWSpic.twitter.com/4AJWsvcLhj
— 7NEWS Brisbane (@7NewsBrisbane) March 2, 2021
In total, by Diary’s count, Palaszczuk challenged reporters six times in the space of three minutes about what their “allegation” was — all while still failing to answer the question on whether she used the private emails for government business.
Defensive much?
When Diary contacted Lion last week, he defended his right to challenge Palaszczuk. “We were just asking fair questions,” he said. “The issues had been highlighted repeatedly over the previous week, and an answer was hard to come by.”
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Media Watch v news: ABC’s (un)civil war
Paul Barry’s high-profile email spat last week with Four Corners reporter Louise Milligan was just the latest example of a growing history of internal friction between Media Watch and ABC news types.
Diary is told that for some time now, the ABC’s news and current affairs division, headed by Gaven Morris, has had an increasingly prickly relationship with Barry.
It goes back two years, following a stinging critique by Barry of the news division’s handling of an Adani story, in which the Media Watch host called out Morris and alleged the division had “spiked” the story after a complaint from the mining giant.
But over the last year, the tensions between Media Watch and the news division have clearly escalated.
They spilt out into the open over an August story by ABC political editor Andrew Probyn, which claimed an Australian Border Force (ABF) officer mistook negative flu tests for COVID-19 results on the Ruby Princess, allegedly helping to set loose 2700 passengers into the community.
@abcnews stands by the reporting by @andrewprobyn and I encourage people to watch/ listen/ read it. We provided all the background to @ABCmediawatch: Reporting on the Ruby Princess https://t.co/RNDYE2GYaR
— Gaven Morris (@gavmorris) August 17, 2020
As Barry went to air to argue this suggestion was “wrong”, both Morris and Probyn were ready. They live-tweeted that they stood by the story.
Morris’s news division even defied Media Watch with a statement on the ABC website in a section titled “Correcting the record: Correcting inaccuracies in media reports about the ABC”. There, it strongly defended Probyn’s reporting as “diligent”.
Things went up a notch in November, after a Media Watch item about perceived conflicts of interest in the ABC’s Darwin newsroom.
The next day the news division posted yet again, bluntly claiming that “Media Watch carried unsourced and unverified claims about the ABC’s Darwin newsroom”.
A statement from me on Media Watch.
— Andrew Probyn (@andrewprobyn) August 17, 2020
I stand by the story.
Moreover, I thoroughly encourage people to read and watch the stories.@ABCmediawatch@TheRealPBarrypic.twitter.com/A3XC4yWJ4U
Finally, to last week’s dispute: Barry wrote on Twitter he had sought comment from Milligan for comment over alleged sexual assaults in parliament, but claimed she “didn’t reply”.
What followed was a full-blown written argument between the pair, which played out in public on Twitter over multiple messages.
The pair repeatedly disputed each other’s claims about whether Media Watch had made it clear he was seeking “comment” from her. Barry insisted that he had sought an interview through direct message, text and voicemail; Milligan claimed she thought he just wanted a “chat”.
But there’s a deeper reason for why the ABC’s media watchdog isn’t the most popular program in news.
Despite being essentially a news program, Media Watch doesn’t report to the news division at all, instead coming under the ABC’s “entertainment and specialist” division, headed by Michael Carrington.
That leaves Morris and co with no control over a program that is one of its toughest critics. And from what Diary is told by ABC types, the entertainment division tends largely to be hands-off with Media Watch’s scripts.
Given these continuing tensions, Morris and Barry won’t be on each other’s Christmas card lists any time soon.
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Right royal list of demands from Meg and Harry
From what we hear, ex-Royal Highnesses Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will be taking plenty of potshots about how the media has taken control of their lives in their explosive Oprah Winfrey interview screening on Monday night.
But there’s growing evidence Meghan and Harry aren’t half-bad at controlling the media themselves.
Off the back of a truck, Diary has obtained the secret details of the strict instructions being given to all of the host broadcasters around the world, including Ten, about how the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are to be promoted in the Oprah interview.
And it would be fair to say their demands are more onerous than with any other international interview we’ve seen.
In agreeing to air the program, the broadcasters, including Ten (which is said to have won out after offering a rumoured $400K for the local rights in a bidding war), had to agree to a list of four non-negotiable demands, which Diary understands could see them in breach of their contracts if not obeyed.
First, the program has to run in full, with Ten and the other broadcasters not allowed to “edit” it in any way. Second, a series of ads for the special — which have been sent to Ten from the US over the last week — are not to be edited. Third, Ten cannot edit in any way even the synopsis that is being provided for program guides, which has been written under tight control in the US. Fourth, host broadcasters are only allowed to use approved still images supplied to promote the special.
The media may once have controlled Meghan and Harry — but it seems to Diary that the shoe’s on the other foot now.
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ABC goes after SBS’s Mardi Gras rights
Watch out, SBS — Aunty is coming for your Mardi Gras.
Diary can reveal the ABC is preparing to make a serious bid to snatch the TV rights to the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras from SBS, the event’s long-term broadcaster, now the 2021 parade is over.
We’re told the ABC is aiming to win the Mardi Gras until at least 2024 in an initial three-year pitch.
As an added bonus, the event’s governing body, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Ltd, is also offering the successful bidder the rights to screen festival events from WorldPride 2023, the international festival to which Sydney won the rights over Montreal and Houston two years ago.
It’s no coincidence that the ABC has been cranking up its presence at the Mardi Gras recently.
The ABC put up its first-ever float at the parade last year, with high profile personalities like Annabel Crabb, Patricia Karvelas, Jeremy Fernandez and Fran Kelly all present. Gay icon Ita Buttrose was mobbed when she christened the ABC float, with many Mardi Gras veterans still remembering her landmark role fronting a prominent HIV-awareness TV campaign in the 1980s. It’s a campaign that Ita remains proud of, and has spoken of repeatedly during the pandemic.
Part of the appeal of the ABC in hosting the event would be audience reach. While SBS attracted 217,000 capital city viewers on Saturday night, it would be expected to attract larger prime-time numbers on the ABC. Rights fees are not believed to be a factor, with production costs the main spend by networks on the broadcast.
It’s not yet clear who the ABC will pitch as hosts for the event, but Fernandez — whose silver jacket was a highlight of the New Year’s Eve fireworks coverage — is already considered a frontrunner if Aunty wins the rights.
Same feelings I had when I met @britneyspears! What an inspiration this human is @PatsKarvelas 😠σε πεÏιμÎνει οι γιαγιά pic.twitter.com/O9WzVign1S
— Stathi (@stathivee) March 7, 2021
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Pell challenges Fitzy’s party crown
Peter FitzSimons and Lisa Wilkinson, be warned: there’s a dangerous new player on the media celebrity party circuit.
Sunrise executive producer Michael Pell wasted no time in hosting 50 of his nearest and dearest at short notice at his opulent Woollahra home in Sydney’s leafy inner east — barely 24 hours after NSW relaxed limits on home guests.
The reason for the party? “Because I can,” he joked to guests, as he served up an endless line of cosmos and margaritas to the increasingly tipsy crowd.
And what a crowd it was. Singer Delta Goodrem and her partner Matthew Copley, international Australian actor David Berry, former Today Show host Jessica Rowe (her husband Peter Overton had an MC gig and couldn’t make it) and Kerri-Anne Kennerley, still recovering from a broken collarbone she sustained in the Sydney production of Pippin a couple of months back.
Of course, the room was awash with Sunrise hosts, including David Koch, Natalie Barr, and Sam Mac. Sam Armytage sent apologies because she was on a honeymoon of sorts in Tasmania with her new husband, Richard Lavender. However, another well-liked breakfast host, Studio 10’s Sarah Harris, was present, along with Weekend Sunrise’s Matt Doran and his partner, Weekend Today executive producer, Kendall Bora (who incidentally is also TV vet Dr Chris Brown’s ex).
Pell was overheard to tell guests to expect the event to “become a regular on the Sydney media scene”. Game on, Fitzy.
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‘Bursting the Canberra bubble’: Milligan goes again
Normally full of previews for its next show, Four Corners’ Twitter feed was unusually quiet for most of the weekend. Diary hears that’s because reporter Louise Milligan was working overtime to get up a story for Monday night’s show, following Attorney-General Christian Porter’s revelation last week that he is the man at the centre of historical rape allegations.
The result, revealed by Four Corners executive producer Sally Neighbour on Sunday, will be Bursting the Canberra Bubble — a nod to Milligan’s Four Corners story in November, Inside the Canberra Bubble.
Milligan and her team gave a weekend deadline for interviews, and was said to be on the hunt for ministerial proxies for Porter, who is unlikely to appear while on mental-health leave.
Bursting the Canberra Bubble is said to be largely a chronology of events leading up to Porter’s press conference last week. By Sunday afternoon, Diary hears it was given the green light, with promos posted to social media.
MONDAY ON #4CORNERS: ‘BURSTING THE CANBERRA BUBBLE.’ Don’t miss it. Here’s a preview #CanberraBubble#auspolpic.twitter.com/rbTXSeyg7j
— Sally Neighbour (@neighbour_s) March 7, 2021
In a stacked 8.30 timeslot, Four Corners will have tough competition in Ten’s Meghan and Harry interview and Nine’s ratings juggernaut Married at First Sight.
Meanwhile, the tensions between commentators spilled over in Sunday morning’s edition of Insiders. At the head of the show, David Speers asked two of the panellists, Annabel Crabb and Peter van Onselen, to declare their associations with the two parties central to the allegations. PvO declared his longstanding friendship with Porter, while Crabb declared her acquaintance decades ago with the Attorney-General’s accuser. The panel also included Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy.
What followed was tension to match anything we’ve seen on Insiders. It came to head in the final observations segment. Van Onselen said that while he was happy at a “macro level” that women were coming forward, “at a micro level … if it’s someone you know and if they claim that they’re innocent: boy, it’s a difficult issue”.
An ashen-faced Crabb bluntly replied: “I don’t know what to make of that.”
Perhaps just as well the pair weren’t in the same studio. Diary hears there were none of the usual post-show festivities, with PvO in the Melbourne studio, while Crabb appeared remotely from Sydney.
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Rare event as Q&A goes non-live
The Hamish Macdonald-hosted Q&A may have looked like it was live on Thursday night. But in a rare event for the ABC’s flagship panel show, Diary has learnt it was actually recorded 90 minutes before airing.
The show came a day after Attorney-General Christian Porter’s emotion-charged press conference in Perth. We’re told Q&A’s decision not to go live was on legal advice, just in case any guest panellist went rogue on the issue.
Diary hears lawyers ultimately decided on a few minor cuts for legal reasons. Interestingly, it was Q&A’s highest-rating show since moving away from Monday nights this year.
Are leaders of the country, ministers, and parliamentarians being held to a lower standard than the rest of us? #QandApic.twitter.com/cQ96ZWzIHu
— QandA (@QandA) March 4, 2021
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Seven ‘dumps’ cricket
If Seven CEO James Warburton’s words to an internal town hall meeting with Sydney staff on Wednesday are any guide, the network’s stoush with Cricket Australia is only just beginning.
Warburton indicated Seven now wants to “dump” altogether its $450m, six-year deal for the international Test and BBL rights. Whether he actually means that or it’s just a negotiating tactic on price, one can never be entirely sure.
But there’s no love lost between Warburton and his predecessor, Tim Worner, when it comes to the cricket rights. Diary hears Warburton is privately irritated with the huge amount Worner paid back in 2018.
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Sky’s Lea scrambles early flight to Perth
Amid a gaggle of WA journalists at Christian Porter’s Perth press briefing last week was one notable Canberra interloper: Sky News’s Jonathan Lea, who was famously Bill Shorten’s journalistic nemesis during the last federal election campaign.
Had Sky flown Lea to Perth especially to attend the press conference? Well, no. Chris Willis, Sky’s executive editor of news and talk, says he was already flying there to cover the WA state election.
But Willis does admit Sky got wind of a possible press conference, and accelerated the timetable so Lea could be there earlier, just in case. “We did bring it forward a touch when we heard a press conference could be on the cards,” Willis tells Diary.
Journalists ask prickly questions. I’m sure others would say I didn’t go hard enough. 🤷â€â™‚ï¸ https://t.co/oVft9fxUhW
— Jonathan Lea (@JonathanLea10) March 3, 2021
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