One Nation’s Mark Latham makes Tony Abbott a job offer
The One Nation MP and the former PM had a rare meeting of political minds when they met to farewell Alan Jones last week.
Tony Abbott and Mark Latham had a rare meeting of political minds at sparrow’s fart on Friday, in honour of Alan Jones’s last 2GB show.
The one-time adversaries halved carbon emissions by carpooling to join Jones at his NSW Southern Highlands stately home studio for his last minutes on air as a radio broadcaster.
And Diary has learned the mini-road trip between the one-time leaders would have made an entertaining show.
The highlight was an intriguing job offer from Latham, as Pauline Hanson’s NSW Upper House representative, to Abbott.
Latham wryly confesses to Diary: “I tried, but failed dismally, to persuade Tony to become the One Nation Senate candidate at the next election.”
But the rejection wasn’t a buzzkill.
We’re told that in the hour from when Abbott picked up Latham in his own white SUV from his Camden home to when they arrived at Jones’s joint, the old political adversaries were so engaged in their dialogue, they barely paused for breath.
It was a similar tale at a valedictory breakfast in Jones’s conservatory after his final show, and for the trip back to Camden. “It was just good company up and down the highway — one of those great celebratory occasions,” Latham tells us.
TV producers, we sense a new show. Move over The Voice — here comes Comcar Karaoke, starring the dynamic duo of Tony Abbott and Mark Latham.
You heard it here first.
Chairman Dan belts media on China road
There’s supposedly a big difference between China and Australia on media freedoms. For one, our media is meant to be able to hold to account governments whose actions don’t pass the pub test.
But Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’s controversial dalliance with China’s Belt and Road Initiative seems to have rubbed off on his attitude to a free press.
Diary is told that sarcastic asides and eye-rolling have been stock reactions among some of Andrews’s spinners towards reporters asking questions about Belt and Road.
There’s a standing joke in the Victorian press gallery that the Andrews crew expects reporters to behave like the journalistic stenographers of the China Daily, not your regular Aussie press pack.
That attitude clearly extends to broadcasters. Repeated requests (including two more last week) by Melbourne’s radio king, 3AW’s Neil Mitchell, for a chat with “Chairman Dan”, as Mitchell has dubbed him, have been curtly rejected or ignored.
Clearly, things have got personal between Andrews and Mitchell, who’s regarded as Melbourne’s toughest interviewer. As Mitchell tells Diary: “One of his mates told me recently: ‘He wants you to apologise.’ I asked: ‘What for?’”
In Andrews’s stubborn absence, Mitchell hammered Belt and Road last week while Andrews somehow found time for some soft three-minute interviews on Melbourne FM radio.
On the print side, multiple reporters have told Diary of a hostile reception from Chairman Dan’s crew to reasonable questions on everything from whether Belt and Road was a “captain’s pick”, to the involvement of Jean Dong, a self-styled pro-China “influencer” and lobbyist.
At times, Andrews’s office has been sulky. One reporter was told repeatedly the reason the office was refusing to comment on an unrelated question was a “front page” by the reporter’s paper on Belt and Road.
In another instance, a reporter who phoned was sarcastically quizzed (before asking anything) about whether this was “another thought bubble”.
But if the Andrews team’s combative style is meant to win undying media devotion, a la China, it’s failing. Journalists at both News and Nine have only been emboldened by the stonewalling to further scrutinise Belt and Road.
As one Melbourne scribe told Diary last week: “If you’re a doctor, you press where it hurts.”
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Jones’s car does a bolt
Alan Jones had many perks at 2GB. One was his stately but gas-guzzling company car: a 6-litre black Holden Caprice.
But now he’s departed the 2GB airwaves, what happens to Jones’s V8 tank?
Diary now has the answer. The Caprice has officially left 2GB’s Pyrmont bunker, and done a bolt 1000km north.
Ex-Sunday Telegraph editor Neil Breen, the host of Jones’s vacated 4BC breakfast slot from Monday, was given the big gig of driving Jones’s former car to Brisbane on an empty Pacific Highway.
“The Caprice has got about
100,000km on the clock, but it’s still got that new car smell,” Breen tells us. “It purred its way to Brisbane.”
To undertake the trip, Breen first had to be granted a special exemption by the Palaszczuk government (as an “essential services” worker) to cross the Queensland border quarantine-free.
There’s a big irony in Breen, of all people, being the one to drive Jones’s car north to take his Brisbane breakfast slot.
The pair had a famous media bust-up way back in 2012 over a Sunday Tele front page under Breen that first ran Jones’s “died of shame” comments about Julia Gillard’s late father.
A prolonged period of “no talkies” ensued between Jones and Breen, before an eventual resolution years later. Breen says fences were mended on the road in about 2017, when he covered Jones’s favourite sport, rugby, as Nine’s Sydney sports reporter.
Breen starts on 4BC in Jones’s slot on Monday, with guests including Annastacia Palaszczuk and Scott Morrison. But he doesn’t get Jones’s car: it’s now 4BC station property. “I didn’t get the Caprice in my package,” Breen laments. “And unfortunately, I’ve grown very fond of it.”
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The voice lives on ...
Ben Fordham may be taking it over from Monday. But the voice of Alan Jones lives on in his former 2GB breakfast shift.
Yes listeners, you don’t shake him off that easily. Jones has generously recorded a series of promos for his successor to help keep loyal 2GB listeners rusted on. One goes: “This is Alan Jones — you’re listening to the Ben Fordham show and I hope you’ll keep listening.”
Meanwhile, betting agency Sportsbet was cheekily running a market last week on the “first official guest” to appear in 2GB breakfast’s new era.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jones had been the bookies’ favourite at $2.75. But Diary has the rundown for Fordham’s first full show, and the bookies were wrong.
While Jones is enjoying his first Monday morning sleep-in after 35 years of breakfast radio, it’s $3.50 second favourite ScoMo who’s the winning bet, first up with Fordham in the 2GB studio straight after its 7am news. The PM’s followed in the rundown by third favourite NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and sport’s hero of the moment, NRL boss Peter V’landys (not even listed in Sportsbet market).
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The end of 130 years
With Alan Jones’s departure last Friday, 130 collective years of experience among loyal Jones radio staff will also go up in smoke.
But Diary hears 2GB has hung on to two Jones team members in new or expanded capacities.
Jones’s 30-year executive producer, Paul Christenson, will finally put 3am starts behind him by moving to drive with Ben Fordham’s as-yet unnamed replacement.
But the most interesting move involves senior producer James Willis. Highly regarded by Jones, it had been thought Willis might migrate with him to Sky News.
But Diary now hears Willis will instead take a bigger role at 2GB: anchoring some of its weekend rugby league coverage, and continuing to help produce Fordham’s new breakfast show.
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Poking the ABC bear
As Diary predicted, things are really getting willing between the Morrison government and the ABC.
The subject, of course, is the ABC’s proposed 2 per cent pay rise in October and the government’s apparent desire to pause it.
Diary last week uncovered a blunt letter on the subject by public service boss Peter Woolcott to ABC boss David Anderson, with the government irritated the ABC had not replied for more than five weeks with as much as a “thumbs-up” emoji.
On where else but the ABC, News Breakfast host Lisa Millar poked the bear last Tuesday by asking Communications Minister Paul Fletcher about whether he had chatted with Anderson about the request.
Fletcher replied with a stern yes: “I have written to the managing director and I’ve had a discussion with him about that, and made the government’s expectations on that very clear.”
And what are Fletcher’s expectations?
“This is a time when many Australians are out of work (or) have had to take substantial reductions in their income, and it’s appropriate that government employees should have a pay freeze,” he said. “The ABC as a government organisation should be part of that.”
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Boo-free footy
With the NRL’s long-awaited return, the undoubted TV stars of the coverage of both Nine and Foxtel were the “virtual crowds” that gave games in empty stadiums some razzle dazzle.
Even Waleed Aly on the ABC’s Offsiders on Sunday gushed about the coronavirus-driven innovation to amp up the virtual crowd noise if teams were about to score.
But Diary on Sunday floated one possible further hit innovation with Fox Sports TV supremo Steve Crawley. “How about injecting some virtual boos to greet a bad NRL or AFL refereeing decision?”, we asked him.
Alas, we were rejected.
“We’ve got far too much respect for the referees,” Crawley told us. “And I’m not sure how it’d go down with Gillon McLachlan or Peter V’landys.”
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Prime-time Pell
Is the wunderkind of Australian breakfast TV, Michael Pell, about to sprinkle some of his morning stardust on Seven’s prime-time shiny floor line-up?
Curious TV industry figures certainly think so, after David Koch and Samantha Armytage’s production general at Sunrise unexpectedly turned up at meetings to canvass new show ideas at Seven in the last fortnight.
Just to add to the intrigue, Diary has now also learnt Pell was last week given a new office at Seven’s corporate HQ at Eveleigh in Sydney’s inner-south, right next to Seven’s production boss Andrew Backwell.
But Pell also still has his Sunrise corner office in Seven’s news bunker in Martin Place. Curiously, Seven insiders say Pell is now evenly splitting his week between Martin Place and Eveleigh.
That hints at a broadened role. Nothing is yet announced, but Pell is undoubtedly the dark horse in Seven’s broader program schedule during a difficult ratings year. For years, he has produced 24 hours a week of slick, ratings-leading but low-cost TV, a priceless formula for a cash-strapped network.
Diary mentioned in March that Pell had taken charge of the Firefight Australia fundraising concert, still Seven’s highest-rating show of the year. The high-ups at Seven noticed.
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Joe, TV’s Trump tamer
During his time as Australia’s US ambassador, he became known as the “Trump whisperer”. Now former federal treasurer Joe Hockey will explore his Trump relationship from the other side of the fence — as a TV personality.
Starting on Monday night, Diary can reveal Hockey will start his newest career: as a political expert for Sky News for the upcoming US election in Washington.
Hockey confirmed the news briefly to us last week: “What a year to be on board. There’s a fascinating presidential election on the way, and I’ll be in the box seat as history is made.”
Apparently high on Sky’s wishlist for Hockey’s new role is a TV interview with Donald Trump. Hockey built up a personal relationship with Trump during his four years as ambassador. He is also famously one of the only foreign officials who plays golf with Trump.
While still ambassador, Hockey is understood to have played a key behind-the-scenes role in facilitating a White House chat last September between Trump and Sky’s Paul Murray in Washington.
Sky won out in securing Hockey’s TV signature over Seven’s Sunrise which, as Diary revealed a fortnight ago, had also been chasing the former treasurer through his agent, The Fordham Company, as part of a mooted on-air reunion with ex-PM Kevin Rudd.
Diary understands Hockey’s TV deal may be extended, with even a possible surprise link-up with Sky’s American sister company, the Fox News channel. We’re told introductions are being lined up between Hockey and Fox News executives.
Hockey will be a regular on Murray’s show, and will also be prominent during Sky’s coverage of the flagship events (debates, election day and inauguration) during the US campaign.
Ten in ‘bullying tactics’ over $2m legal fees: Lehrmann
The former Liberal staffer has accused Ten of employing ‘bullying tactics’ by forcing him to pay their $2 million legal bill despite the fact he is on Centrelink, court documents reveal.
ABC ignored ‘doctored’ audio concerns
ABC boss David Anderson admits the broadcaster's legal team ignored a letter raising concerns over audio depicting an Australian soldier shooting at unarmed civilians in Afghanistan.