Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley is adamant he had nothing to do with an inflammatory message posted on his parliamentary Facebook account last week, which trolled Scott Morrison with the words “Shame on you”.
In response to a seemingly innocuous post from Morrison talking about the number of vaccine doses administered over a 24 hour period, a reply from the “Martin Foley MP” Facebook account addressed ScoMo directly: “Shame on you! This is on you.”
Mysteriously, the post soon disappeared, but – with even the smallest of digital footprints becoming permanent – not before several people screenshot the message.
An awkward Foley addressed the inflammatory post during Tuesday’s Covid-19 briefing in Melbourne he hosted in Dan Andrews’ absence. Asked if the Facebook post was his, Foley replied: “No, I didn’t post that.”
Instead, he threw an unnamed staff member, who is clearly younger than 50, under the bus: “Very fortunately, I don’t have any, I think it’s called administration rights, on my social media channels. I leave that to people under 50.”
In his defence, he also claimed the unlikely title of the Victorian government’s “most co-operative cabinet minister” with the Morrison government: “I was disappointed that it happened, and I think if any minister right around all of the states has demonstrated a capacity to work as co-operatively as possible with the commonwealth, I might claim that title.”
Diary predicts there won’t be any rush in the Victorian cabinet to dispute that claim.
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QAnon questions cause friction within ABC ranks
The ABC’s proposed Four Corners story, which has been attempting to explore Scott Morrison’s alleged links to a QAnon supporter, led to some very high-level dialogue between the PM’s office and the ABC last week.
Diary can reveal a phone call was made by the Prime Minister’s chief media adviser, Andrew Carswell, to the ABC’s head of news and current affairs, Gaven Morris, last Tuesday about 3pm. The dialogue was brief and to the point.
It is understood the call began with a question from Carswell. “Is the story going to air?” we’re told he asked of the program, being pursued by Four Corners investigative reporter Louise Milligan.
Morris is said to have replied: “Yes it is. You need to answer the questions.” Morris went on to tell Carswell the questions were “well thought through”.
Sources from both the government and ABC camps claim there was “not a hint” of political influence in terms of whether the story ran or not.
Morris is said to have stood up for Four Corners. Carswell is said to have replied he would “get back to the team”.
Diary understands it was not the first call between the pair, with another call several weeks ago in which the PMO aired its problems with the story to Morris.
But aside from the two Morris calls, the Four Corners editorial team claims to have contacted the PMO more than 20 times in relation to the story.
The QAnon episode is expected to be a big issue at Monday’s recall of ABC managing director David Anderson to Senate estimates.
On Friday, Anderson explained why the story had not yet aired. “I reviewed the material and made an editorial decision it was not yet ready for broadcast, as any responsible editor-in-chief would.
“My exact words were: ‘Please take on board the feedback and keep going. There is nothing in the program that I can see is time-sensitive. I would like a written response next week addressing the feedback’.”
We understand by the weekend there was some progress with the much-discussed story. The PMO is said to have sent a response to a pared-back set of questions by the ABC, after a much longer series of questions was initially submitted and not replied to.
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Probyn rejects Four Corners question to ScoMo
The ABC’s political editor Andrew Probyn “politely declined” a request by Four Corners to ask Scott Morrison a question in a press conference on Thursday to help the program’s QAnon allegations, Diary is told.
But in another version of events, Probyn’s decline of the request may have been blunter.
In all versions, Probyn is said to have made it clear to Four Corners it wasn’t an issue he was across or would ask about.
Probyn was true to his word in his refusal of the Four Corners request in Thursday’s press conference.
There was no sign of a question to the PM about his attitude to QAnon. Instead, he asked Morrison one question during the briefing, about whether disaster payments to Victorians from the current lockdown in the state would still be made “if the CMO were to change his view on a hotspot during that week”.
We’re told the QAnon story has only served to underline strained relations between news reporters in the ABC’s Canberra press gallery tribe and the rival Four Corners tribe over differing editorial approaches.
Anderson, the chief of the various ABC tribes, may have to call on his well-chronicled diplomatic skills to keep it civil between the rival clans.
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Nine’s urgent calls about falling 2GB
Nervous calls were made last week between members of the Nine board and the management of the company’s radio operations, Diary has learnt.
We’re told the subject of the calls last Tuesday, hours after the release of the latest radio ratings, was the growing threat to what insiders have dubbed “Fortress 2GB”. That’s the term that they’ve used to encapsulate 2GB’s unbroken dominance of nearly two decades over Sydney radio, Australia’s most competitive market.
But the once-impregnable 2GB was shaken to its foundations last Tuesday with the release of the latest radio ratings, with the station dropping dramatically to an 11.7 per cent share of the radio audience – a narrow 0.9 clear of second-placed smoothfm.
The station hasn’t lost a single radio survey in 17 years – yet. But that record is under threat. A line-up that previously included Alan Jones, Ray Hadley, Chris Smith, Ben Fordham, Steve Price and Ross Greenwood would win virtually every timeslot, helping the station to clock up an unprecedented 133 successive ratings survey wins.
But exactly a year after Jones’ departure, 2GB is fighting to retain its Sydney crown. While breakfast host Fordham and morning host Hadley remain in top spots, 2GB’s ratings have fallen off a cliff between midday and 6pm.
Deb Knight, the 2GB afternoon host, and drive host Jim Wilson are now both being soundly beaten by even the ABC’s shoestring-budget youth station, Triple J. Both Knight and Wilson made their names as TV personalities. Their moves to radio were part of a new mindset at Nine Radio to transform from its roots as a firebrand conservative station appealing to older listeners, to a safer, ad-friendly product they could make money from by bundling TV and radio ad packages.
Nine thought a Jones-less 2GB would court less controversy and therefore avoid the advertiser boycotts he encountered in his latter period on radio, helping it to avoid defamation lawsuits and attract new, younger audiences.
Knight landed at 2GB and Brisbane’s 4BC after rapidly departing Nine’s Today show at the end of 2019, after a ratings plunge as part of an all-female duo with Georgie Gardner.
In just over a year on radio, Knight’s audience share percentage has shrunk by nearly a quarter, from the 11.7 per cent announced in April 2020 that put her in top spot, to 8.8 per cent in last week’s survey, leaving her fourth behind smoothfm, WSFM and Triple J. In that time, she has lost an accumulated 26,000 listeners across the week, a detailed breakdown obtained by Diary shows.
Former Seven sports anchor Wilson was even lower: a well-beaten seventh in drive with 6.3 per cent of the audience, having lost 56,000 accumulated listeners since he took over the slot Fordham won in his last survey. Wilson, a radio novice, beat 2GB veterans Chris Smith, Jason Morrison and Michael McLaren to the plum drive slot last year. Early on, he signalled a move away from 2GB’s rusted-on conservative audience: “After a couple of years of doing this, the listeners will wonder which way I vote.”
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Sales fires back at pro-Dan fanatics
Leigh Sales has stared down an unprecedented pile-on from fanatical fans of Victorian Premier Dan Andrews after bizarre calls on social media for the 7.30 host to be replaced over her tough questions on the state’s lockdown.
Sales and Laura Tingle were trending nationally on Twitter on Wednesday and Thursday, largely because of the calls for chief political correspondent to become the 7.30 host.
The hashtag #IStandWithDan was also back with a vengeance, despite Andrews’s incapacitation.
The pile-on against Sales prompted the ABC to speak out in her defence, offering its “full support” to the 7.30 host through this column to continue to ask questions about the lockdowns and other issues.
“Asking challenging questions isn’t expressing a point of view for or against,” a spokeswoman says. “It’s good journalism … Leigh Sales’s job is to vigorously hold people in power to account — recently including the Prime Minister on the Covid strategy, Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt on the vaccine rollout and the Victorian government on its fourth lockdown.”
What brought the anger of the pro-Dan advocates to a new peak was Sales asking whether a lockdown had been necessary, and a Wednesday interview with Melbourne restaurateur Caterina Borsato, who was asked at length about the impact of the restrictions on hospitality businesses in Melbourne.
A crowd of pro-Dan Twitter warriors, confined to their Victorian bunkers, vented their bile, describing Sales as a “hack,” “biased” to the Coalition, and writing that she “must be removed from her role”. One even accused Sales of “being reckless with our lives and the lives of our children”.
But the pro-Dan fanatics haven’t deterred Sales from calling for scrutiny of the Victorian lockdowns. Retweeting a post by the Australian’s Victorian political reporter Rachel Baxendale about the need for “annoying journos” to ask questions, Sales wrote: “Thanks to the Victorians journalists who asked questions on these matters, despite the intense bullying on this platform.”
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Plans for TV’s Holgate-athon
The ABC really, really likes ex-Australia Post chief Christine Holgate as an interview subject.
So much so, Diary has learnt a holy trinity of ABC current affairs and panel shows, Four Corners, Australian Story and Q+A, have all been doggedly chasing Holgate interviews in the last few weeks – and won’t take no for an answer.
The first successful applicant for a bit of Holgate’s stardust has been Four Corners. We can reveal Holgate concluded a no-holds-barred interview with Four Corners reporter Michael Brissenden in Sydney last Wednesday, as the centrepiece for an investigation due to screen on June 14.
The lengthy chat dealt with the circumstances of her Australia Post departure, as well as canvassing the possible part-privatisation of the government enterprise.
The Coalition will no doubt be thrilled! And they’ll be even happier it’s just the start of the ABC’s Holgate-athon.
We also hear for several weeks veteran Australian Story producer Jennifer Feller has been chasing Holgate to profile her journey from being a one-time teenage postie in England all the way to taking charge of Australia Post.
Holgate hasn’t yet said “yes” to that profile, but the smart money is it will almost certainly happen.
Meanwhile, Q+A is chasing its own piece of Holgate magic on an upcoming Thursday night. And all of that is on top of Holgate’s exclusive April sit down (pre-Senate inquiry) with 7.30’s Laura Tingle.
Diary is still confirming rumours Holgate has been approached for a singing cameo on Spicks and Specks, and for an episode of Play School where its famous clock is brought to you by a certain timepiece sponsor. Guess which one!
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Barnaby Joyce’s late night talkback call
On Thursday night’s national Nightlife program on ABC radio, a novice caller to the show dialled in at 10.20pm to talk on the weighty subject of John Maynard Keynes and last month’s federal budget.
“Barnaby’s on the line. Hello.” said the show’s host, Philip Clark.
“Hello, how are you?,” an instantly recognisable voice replied. “Fascinating listening to your show tonight.”
An audibly surprised Clarke reflexively responded: “That’s Barnaby Joyce!” The ex-deputy PM replied: “It certainly is.”
Joyce’s purpose was to ask the show’s guest, Justyn Walsh, an economist, author and expert on Keynes, about whether the legendary British economist would have approved of Josh Frydenberg’s May Budget.
Joyce put in his 2c worth with the surprising view the budget was an “expansive, sort of Keynesian budget which I probably believe John Maynard Keynes wouldn’t agree with”.
He then asked Walsh: “In his mechanism of economic stimulus … was the premise of the government’s role one of capital infrastructure, or basically an expansion of wages and salaries in the public sector?”
Walsh replied Keynes’ real view would be to invest in “real assets people could use” in the future: “His theory was really a theory about an economy in crisis … when the government steps in.”
Proof, if needed, that late night radio is where the power is.
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