ABC’s ‘Labor Thugs’ host Fauziah Ibrahim back on air

ABC News Breakfast TV host Fauziah Ibrahim.

It’s not often that newscasters themselves become the headlines.

But ABC News Breakfast weekend host Fauziah Ibrahim unwittingly found herself in that position, right in the middle of the election campaign.

As Diary noticed, Ibrahim had suddenly vanished from her prized hosting role when, without any on-air explanation, Planet America host John Barron suddenly popped up on the show.

The only acknowledgment of Ibrahim’s absence was when Barron told co-host Johanna Nicholson that he would “usually be watching you and Fauziah”.

We correctly surmised at the time that Ibrahim’s vanishing act (which endured for the remainder of the election campaign) had something to do with her posting two provocative lists on Twitter: one featuring “Labor Trolls/Thugs” and the other labelled, even more provocatively, “Lobotomised Shitheads”.

One prominent Labor figure, former senator Doug Cameron, even gleefully took to Twitter to out himself as one of Ibrahim’s alleged “lobotomised shitheads”.

But after our item appeared last month, the ABC quickly put out a statement to reveal that it was indeed “reviewing” Ibrahim’s social media activity, and that Ibrahim had “taken a break from on-camera duties” while the review took place.

The general view within the ABC was that it was poor form that such an inflammatory political list had emerged from one of its presenters in the thick of a highly charged election campaign.

So it was particularly noteworthy on Saturday morning when, once more without any fanfare, Ibrahim made a post-campaign comeback to rejoin Nicholson in co-hosting the show.

There was one important change for Ibrahim compared with when the controversy about her Twitter lists emerged last month: she had deleted her Twitter account.

When we clicked on her Twitter handle, @Fauziah_Ibrahim, we were told: “This account doesn’t exist.”

ABC managing director David Anderson personally emailed staff last year to make it clear that they couldn’t bring the ABC into disrepute through activity on their personal Twitter accounts.

Anderson told staff they had a “responsibility to protect the ABC’s … integrity where your personal use of social media intersects with your professional life”.

He also warned that errant social media behaviour would “be dealt with in accordance with the relevant ABC employment agreement and may lead to disciplinary action, including possible termination of ­employment”.

For Ibrahim at least, that ominous scenario now seems to have been avoided.

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‘Cannes in Cairns’: Nine parties it up

We’re on a boat … Nine Entertainment staff and clients at a corporate event in Cairns.

“Losers have meetings, but winners have parties,” was the signature motto of legendary late Nine boss Sam Chisholm during Nine’s glory days of the 1980s.

Four decades later, the current crop of Nine executives are still taking Chisholm’s words to heart.

Diary hears that current Nine CEO Mike Sneesby and a big Nine contingent put in a stellar performance at a big media industry powwow in Cairns.

Among other things, the company hired a superyacht for a big drinks session, and even put on a Nine-sponsored Ferris wheel.

They’re just some of the activities that a substantial Nine contingent of executives participated in, as the company forked out for some generous post-Covid “corporate hospitality”.

The timing of the Nine contingent’s fun in the sun at the B&T “Cannes in Cairns” conference on election week between May 16 and 18 has, however, raised the odd murmur within the group. After all, it came on the same week that many Nine journalists were working around the clock during the election campaign’s last days to put out newspapers, TV and radio news bulletins.

And it wasn’t lost on some Nine types that just as the executives were in Cairns, the company had just put an offer that fell short of matching union demands for pay rises under the company’s enterprise bargaining agreement.

Mysteriously, Nine sales executives on board the superyacht – who had initially posted shots of their partying on the superyacht on Instagram and Facebook – suddenly took them down.

But their outbreak of shyness didn’t come before screenshots were sent to Diary featuring Nine executives (like its chief sales officer Michael Stephenson) happily posing on the party boat.

There was also an impromptu drinks session at the northern city’s Gilligan’s club, which bills itself as “Cairns’s No. 1 place to party”: where the Nine crew, including a bunch of sales directors and clients, along with many of the event’s other attendees, were out in force well into the wee hours.

Mike Sneesby.

Nine’s generosity extended to its Ferris wheel, free Love Island swimwear for participants, Nine-sponsored 20-minute helicopter trips over the Barrier Reef, a frose stand, and even a DJ booth at one of the functions – although we’re told Sneesby himself, who was there to appear on a panel, didn’t personally participate in these activities.

A Nine spokesman told Diary that the company’s spend at Cannes in Cairns was “a decision to prioritise that event in terms of sales hospitality spend, which remains entirely consistent with previous years”.

B&T billed Cannes in Cairns as “the Covid circuit-breaker we all need”, with “all the fun and activities to keep even the most restless soul satisfied”.

With word quickly filtering back to head office of the Nine contingent’s “tax deductible” three days in Cairns, one Nine type who wasn’t invited up north wryly observed: “After that, they’ll want to put on the good champagne at the Logies!”

Nine wouldn’t reveal to Diary how much the company spent on its various events up north.

But post-Cairns, Sneesby was off on yet another glamorous work trip: this time to Hollywood for the annual LA Screenings, where Nine buys many of its international shows.

And Diary is told there was time for one more drinks gathering involving Sneesby and a bunch of Nine staff at the glamorous London West Hollywood Hotel, that happened to coincide with his own birthday last week.

However, Nine insiders insist that it was not a birthday bash and was simply a “team gathering” between Sneesby and his troops.

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Keneally’s ‘delusions’ in FitzSimons interview

Kristina Keneally says ‘lockdowns engendered an understandable sense of parochialism that the community had been left behind by both major political parties’. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Kristina Keneally’s week of uncharacteristic media silence finally came to an end on Sunday. The now former politician chose Peter FitzSimons in Sydney’s Sun-Herald newspaper to deliver her unique take on why she lost the seat of Fowler.

To be fair on Fitzy, he did admit the interview had been teed up “at her request” on Thursday – presumably somewhere near the pair’s preferred habitat north of the harbour, rather than the scene of Keneally’s shock failure in Sydney’s southwest.

But those hoping for Keneally to admit her role in her own downfall would have been disappointed.

Asked whether the problem was that a “wealthy white woman from distant parts” was “parachuted” into a “multicultural community”, Keneally was dismissive.

“I think the impact of the Covid lockdowns had far more to do with it, and was far more at play on the day,” she told FitzSimons.

“Those harsh lockdowns engendered an understandable sense of parochialism that the community had been left behind by both major political parties. And I genuinely believe that whether the Labor Party ran me or anyone else in Fowler, they would have encountered the same set of challenges.”

Peter FitzSimons. Picture: Mark Wilson

Bizarrely, Keneally also blamed one of the great bogeymen of Australian politics, Clive Palmer, for her defeat.

“You had … a wealthy person in Clive Palmer bankrolling the UAP – and while the UAP didn’t win any seats the impact that Palmer had was to drive down major party primary votes and deprive the major parties of Senate seats and preferences in lower house seats.”

A chorus of western Sydney natives wasted no time in lashing out at Keneally’s version of events. One Nation NSW leader Mark Latham dubbed it “completely delusional” and “narcissistic on steroids”.

So should the newspaper have more robustly tested Keneally’s bizarre claims? Bevan Shields, the editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, robustly defended the interview.

“I thought Peter’s interview with Kristina was very good, very fair, and included all the right questions,” he told us.

“We had been chasing a chat with her since election night and I’m glad it finally happened. It’s up to readers to judge Kristina’s comments.”

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Palaszczuk-linked firm races to Canberra

Anthony Albanese chats with Annastacia Palaszczuk during the 2022 Federal Election campaign. Picture: Brad Fleet

The ink is barely dry on the federal election result, but one heavily Labor-linked Queensland lobbying firm has already raced to Canberra following the triumphant victory of new PM Anthony Albanese.

Annastacia Palaszczuk’s lobbying firm of choice, Anacta, announced last Monday, less than 48 hours after the election, some big expansion plans: a move to set up a new office in the national capital under a federal Labor government.

It’s a bold move for Anacta to make, given that it has already copped plenty of flak across the media about being too close to government.

In the aftermath of the 2020 Queensland state election, it emerged that Anacta, led by Evan Moorhead, had run the Labor ­campaign out of the Premier’s CBD offices for the duration of the successful campaign.

Contributing to the outcry was the fact that one of the firm’s co-founders previously worked very closely for Palaszczuk — Anacta director Moorhead had been Palaszczuk’s longstanding chief strategist.

Not surprisingly, newspapers and TV 6pm news bulletins at the time lashed the fact that the Queensland government would allow an external lobbying firm into its own offices, noting the perception that bringing in a firm helmed by Moorhead created the perception of “jobs for old mates” in the Premier’s own building.

But seemingly unfazed by all the criticism, Anacta has wasted no time in seeking opportunity in the election victory of another Labor administration, this time at federal level.

And conveniently, Anacta’s new Canberra offices will be on National Circuit, a mere stone’s throw from Labor’s new seat of power at Parliament House.

A note to its clients last Monday started by boasting: “Anacta is expanding! Today we opened our Canberra office on National Circuit, in the heart of our nation’s capital. Director Evan Moorhead will be leading the establishment of our federal operations, along with our Director of Consulting Denise Spinks.”

Interestingly, Spinks also worked as Palaszczuk’s deputy chief of staff before joining Anacta.

Clearly, even in Queensland, Moorhead and Spinks had their fingers on the pulse of an imminent Albanese victory in Canberra, and were ready to press the button on their big move to the national capital as soon as a Labor victory materialised.

But the big question is whether Albo will give as much access to Anacta as they have enjoyed under Palaszczuk in Queensland.

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Stefanovic’s ‘Karl the Queenslander’ campaign

While the phony poll is now over, the real election campaign has some way to go. Forget about Anthony Albanese and Scott Morrison: the big question now is who will win Australian TV’s most coveted prize, the Gold Logie.

Last week, Nine launched an intense carpet-bombing campaign on its TV stations around the country for Karl Stefanovic to win his second Gold. And let’s just say that Nine’s blanket national push in its ad breaks for Stefanovic to win the gong would make even Clive Palmer blush.

Maybe it’s a bid to soothe his wounded ego, after Diary first revealed last month (and Stefanovic finally confirmed last week) that he had his nose out of joint when passed over for hosting Nine’s election night.

Karl Stefanovic. Picture: Getty Images

What’s really interesting is that Nine even tailored a specific version of the ads north of the border to cash in on a bit of State of Origin parochialism. Nine is telling viewers throughout the state to register their Logie votes for Stefanovic in order to reward a proud “Queenslander”.

Not to carp or anything, but that pitch for “Karl the Queenslander” seems like the tiniest bit of hyperbole, given that Stefanovic has been based in Sydney as host of the Today show for decades.

Nine’s incessant “Karl for Gold” campaign is also doubling as a morale-building pitch for the Today host at a time he has copped some tough publicity about the show’s flagging ratings in 2022.

This month, ABC News Breakfast momentously passed Today in the metro market ratings for an entire ratings week, behind only Seven’s Sunrise.

And the ABC breakfast show’s co-host Michael Rowland didn’t miss the chance to rub it in at the time with Today, hinting that the ratings rise came because his show was weightier than rival breakfast shows such as Today.

“The result reflects our key point of difference to the other shows,” Rowland triumphantly told TV Tonight.

Diary has asked Rowland what that “point of difference” with commercial breakfast TV was.

“Our main focus and always has been since the show started in 2008 is news – not just local news, but our network of correspondents around the world,” Rowland told us.

But Nine remains hopeful that the end of the election campaign, and the start of the even more important “Karl for Gold” campaign, will lure some of its wandering brekkie TV viewers back.

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