On Thursday morning, the ABC’s regular 10am editorial meeting in its Parliament House bureau in Canberra took an unusual turn.
Michelle Ainsworth, the new boss of the Canberra bureau, announced she was ditching the ABC’s dedicated ‘beer fridge’: which for decades has allowed staff to drop $3 into an honesty box and down an ice cold one at the end of a hard day.
Ainsworth told some of the ABC’s most senior political staff that the very concept of a beer fridge was no longer in step with the values of the new culture in the Canberra bubble in the wake of a 2021 review by Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins. The review urged parliament to adopt alcohol policies “with a view to restricting availability”.
But Diary’s spies tell us not all ABC staff in the meeting were impressed with the beer fridge ban. It fell to the bureau’s most senior member, ABC political editor Andrew Probyn – who one colleague described as “incredulous” at the development – to speak up.
While Probyn was the only dissenting voice heard, another ABC reporter later told Diary they thought the move to ditch what they saw as a “harmless” tradition was “overkill”.
But the new ABC bureau boss wasn’t for shifting, telling staff in a follow-up email: “It does compromise our reporting of the culture in this building if we are still running a beer fridge … It’s no longer acceptable to drink alcohol in the office these days.”
One ABC Canberra type told Diary she wouldn’t miss the fridge. “It’s a relic of the past. Beer fridge culture is primarily a male tradition anyway, because women have generally had to go and pick up kids.”
The decision leaves just one media beer fridge inside Parliament House: in Seven’s main Canberra bureau.
Seven insiders are bracing for an onslaught of ABC refugees fronting up with $3 in coins in a desperate bid to score a cold one after chasing pollies all day.
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Uhlmann retires with parting shot at Twitter
Amid little fanfare and few goodbyes on his last day, Nine’s political editor Chris Uhlmann on Thursday quietly retired from one of the highest profile jobs in political journalism.
When Diary reached Uhlmann on the night of his departure, which featured no farewell party, he confirmed his 33-year career as a journalist was now over. “I am going quietly into the good night,” the 62-year-old told us. “I am done. I am retired.”
Uhlmann says his contract with Nine commenced on October 1, 2017 (after he replaced Laurie Oakes in the plum political editor role), and ended last week, exactly five years on.
But on his way out, he held up one last middle finger to Twitter, the platform he so openly despises.
Uhlmann, who has been the frequent target of angry online trolls throughout the last few years, recently told Diary in an epic spray that he believed Twitter had become a “self-basting platform” that was home to the “bigoted pitchfork brigade”.
He also claimed the social media platform was populated by “left wing thugs” and “cartoon-cutout Trots (who) are hypocrites as well as flogs”.
As Uhlmann finally left the media on Thursday, he took things a step further by deleting Twitter for good, delivering one last parting shot. “I have deleted Twitter, and I will never be back,” he told Diary. “It’s not a real place.”
Where has @cuhlmann gone?
— Andrew Probyn (@andrewprobyn) September 29, 2022
I think he has left the building ...
Good luck my friend.
He also took aim at reporters who managed to make the story about themselves: “Too many journalists think they are the news.”
Uhlmann is heading to Europe next year for a planned sabbatical, but before that he’s embarking on an epic solo drive north.
“My only intention at the moment is to go on a big drive as far north as my car will go in Australia,” he said. “I’m hoping my car will make it to the tip of Cape York. I’ll get myself to Cooktown, and see where I get to from there.”
Uhlmann said he had “a lot of thinking” to do on his solo trip north about the state of discourse in modern Australia. “The world is a very interesting place at the moment,” he told Diary.
In a recent essay, he called out “people who style themselves as progressives” for embarking on a “relentless assault on the Western liberal democratic tradition” in Australia.
In the coming days, Nine is expected to name Weekend Today host Charles Croucher as his replacement, as foreshadowed by Diary earlier this month.
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Bandt’s Covid crusade unmasked in Qantas Chairman’s Lounge
Since the start of the Covid pandemic in 2020, Greens leader Adam Bandt has deployed his considerable media profile to back in his vocal stance in favour of mask-wearing, even mocking anyone who dares to take an alternative view.
In August, Bandt – considered federal parliament’s unofficial flagwaver for mask wearing – took to Twitter to publicly shame an unnamed Nationals MP who had whinged about a Greens MP not wearing a tie, but hadn’t “been wearing a mask all week” in parliament.
A Nationals MP who hasn’t been wearing a mask all week just got angry that Max Chandler-Mather wasn’t wearing a tie.@MChandlerMather was asking the PM a question about public housing.
— Adam Bandt (@AdamBandt) August 3, 2022
Ties. That’s what the Coalition is angry about.
Bandt’s mask crusading was on full view last week, where the Greens leader was among a handful of MPs – along with Kooyong MP Monique Ryan and three of his Greens colleagues – who conspicuously kept up a show of mask-wearing for the cameras while parliament sat.
But it seems Bandt doesn’t always practise what he preaches away from the bright lights and TV cameras of parliament.
Diary’s spies were surprised to spot the unmasked figure of Bandt in the anything-but-socialist world of the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge last Wednesday afternoon.
And our observers noted while carefully watching Bandt during a frantic peak hour in the invitation-only confines of Qantas’s most exclusive lounge that his face was conspicuously unprotected for the entire time.
The mask-free Greens leader was among a crowded room of national political figures spotted from all sides of politics who, like Bandt, were fleeing Canberra via the opulent world of the Chairman’s Lounge after a shortened sitting week.
Among a host of high-flyers populating the Lounge on Wednesday were Home Affairs and Cybersecurity Minister Clare O’Neil, Health Minister Mark Butler, Skills and Training Minister Brendan O’Connor, and Shadow Education Minister Alan Tudge. Little social distancing going on there!
But the unmasked Bandt – who had changed out of his parliamentary suit and tie into a more casual black ensemble by the time he reached the Chairman’s Lounge – appeared entirely unworried about exposing himself to Covid-19 there, as he made three or four laps of the room while chatting with some of his high-powered political counterparts.
Over the years, man-of-the-people Bandt has consistently campaigned in the media for a government-owned Qantas, such as in June 2020 when he stood up for thousands of workers who were laid off at the height of the Covid pandemic. But Diary’s spies wryly remarked last week that he seemed to fit right in with the most luxurious trappings of a privately-owned national carrier.
Still, there was one more twist in the tale. Just as Bandt departed the camera-free Chairman’s Lounge to enter the common area of the airport to catch his flight, lo and behold, the Greens leader immediately donned a fashionable black mask to match his outfit and public rhetoric.
Could it be Bandt was happy to breathe in the rarefied air of the Chairman’s Lounge without any protection – but not so relaxed when mixing with the riffraff?
Bandt’s media spokesman had a firm ‘no comment’ on the claims when Diary put them to him on Sunday.
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Keneally gives Albo some tough love
Anthony Albanese had many coaches as he rose from mere opposition leader to Prime Minister.
But one particular adviser is likely to raise eyebrows. According to Peter van Onselen and Wayne Errington’s new book, Victory: The Inside Story of Labor’s Return to Power’ – to be released on Wednesday – Kristina Keneally gave Albanese some tough love about how he could sharpen up his performance in the media.
It emerges that the former deputy Senate leader, along with Penny Wong and Tony Burke, took Albanese aside to counsel him on how to improve as the May federal election loomed.
According to van Onselen and Errington, colleagues were “not impressed” with aspects of his performance. The book notes that “senior frontbenchers one by one took their concerns to the boss”, including “lethargic performances in parliament”.
Keneally took charge of advising Albanese on his media performance, particularly his 2019 appearance on Q+A alongside Malcolm Turnbull, on Tony Jones’s last appearance as host of the ABC panel show.
Keneally emailed Albanese after the episode to give an unvarnished written assessment of his performance. “(She took him) blow by blow through what had worked and what hadn’t, and why he needed to start preparing properly for such opportunities,” van Onselen and Errington write.
Keneally apparently concluded her lengthy Q+A assessment by telling Albanese: “An hour on national television doesn’t come along all that often.”
Some unkind observers might argue Keneally may not have been best placed to advise Albanese on politics or media management, having delivered Labor its biggest defeat in NSW political history when she was tossed out as premier, before losing the once safe Labor seat of Fowler this year in the federal election.
To paraphrase her advice to Albo, Diary reckons those sorts of opportunities don’t “come along all that often”.
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Is Gladys the woman to save Optus?
While still NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian was famously dubbed as: “The Woman Who Saved Australia” – on the cover of The AFR Magazine in the midst of the Covid crisis.
Now there’s word Berejiklian may be deployed behind the scenes as the woman to save Optus, as the telecommunications group tries to come to grips with an equally daunting crisis, this one involving the breach of some of the most personal details of 9.8 million of its past and present customers.
Diary understands Berejiklian has in recent days started to take a leading role in Optus’s crucial media response to the epic crisis. In her new-ish role as Optus’s managing director of enterprise and business, Berejiklian is responsible for the telecommunications group’s public affairs and regulatory affairs.
While it is believed she took a low-key role in the early days of the crisis, over the weekend, Berejiklian is understood to have been burning the midnight oil in helping to formulate Optus’s media response.
That would fit in with some mischievous Twitter memes that have popped up, showing Berejiklian delivering the daily “hacking numbers” in front of a mocked-up Optus adaptation of the Covid dashboard she famously delivered daily during the pandemic.
But the word is definitely not to expect the former NSW Premier to front any press conferences as Optus’s media response unfolds in coming days.
While Berejiklian’s role will grow behind the scenes, we hear she will not be fronting any of the actual media response.
Diary imagines one reason could be that it would be seen as a distraction that would only give further oxygen to the story.
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D’Ath leads media on a ‘wild-goose chase’
A fuming Brisbane media pack is still talking about a series of farcical manoeuvres by Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath, as the Palaszczuk Government desperately tried to dodge scrutiny on a succession of health scandals last week.
D’Ath comically led the media pack on a wild-goose chase throughout the week, as the government prepared to unveil yet another damning report about her portfolio – this time scathing findings about botched surgeries and three neonatal deaths in the maternity ward of Mackay Base Hospital.
It’s the latest disturbing report about medical stuff-ups in Queensland – on top of similar recent damning inquiries into DNA failures and hospital bed shortages – which is only adding to a growing media narrative of a failing health system.
For the embattled D’Ath, the strain of being the face of a statewide medical crisis is starting to show.
But even hardened Brisbane press gallery types were shocked at the lengths to which D’Ath was willing to go to dodge the media.
At one point, there were farcical scenes as D’Ath first announced she was heading to Mackay with less than 24 hours’ notice to announce the damning Mackay Base Hospital report – then called off the trip just as journalists were boarding flights to chase her.
It started when a visibly-nervous D’Ath came out of hiding on Tuesday – after a six-day media absence – to reveal she was heading to Mackay to release the hospital report on Wednesday – the same day as Annastacia Palaszczuk’s headline-grabbing announcement of her $62bn clean energy plan to phase out coal by 2035.
That led Nine’s Tim Arvier to use the briefing to accuse D’Ath of trying to hide the Mackay hospital stuff-ups behind Palaszczuk’s announcement.
D’Ath denied it. But what happened in the next few hours was something straight out of a Benny Hill Show chase sequence, together with the silly music, as Nine and Seven scrambled to find last-minute flights to chase the embattled D’Ath to Mackay.
But farcically, just as the news crew from Nine boarded a Mackay flight on Tuesday night, they were told D’Ath had called off her Mackay press conference.
The Nine crew then had to convince airline staff to let them off the plane and remove their checked luggage.
It later emerged D’Ath would instead head to Mackay on Friday, prompting yet another round of frantic booking of overpriced $1000 return flights to Queensland’s Sugar City by Nine, Ten and the Courier Mail – at the peak of school holiday season.
But D’Ath’s media run-around clearly didn’t work.
The Health Minister’s Friday press conference led the news on Seven, Nine and Ten on Friday night, and hogged the weekend news cycle.
Meanwhile, Brisbane TV news bosses won’t forget the Benny Hill-style run-around D’Ath gave them last week in a hurry. One livid senior TV news executive said privately: “What a shitshow!”
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