Few could have missed the sudden disappearance of Annastacia Palaszczuk’s attack poodle Steven ‘‘Giggles’’ Miles in recent weeks. So when Queensland’s so-called ‘premier-in-waiting’ made his long-awaited return to the political fray last week after a 10-day absence from daily media briefings, it was a surprise to many to see him stumbling and bumbling through journalists’ questions without his trademark strut.
A stuttering Miles was caught out repeatedly as not being across his brief during an excruciating press briefing where he acted as the government’s Covid spokesman on Wednesday. And it was a bad moment for Miles to stumble, coming in a dramatic week in which hospitalisations in Queensland hit their highest levels since the pandemic began.
So bad was his stumble, that Brisbane’s commercial nightly news bulletins on Seven, Nine and Ten all took a shot at the Deputy Premier. It was Ten reporter Jacob Chicco who took the biscuit for the most scathing take-down of Miles, with a pun-laden report singling out Miles’s “dribble”, “spin” and “own goals” in a train wreck press conference where the Deputy Premier was hoping to make it all about the national women’s soccer team, the Matildas, playing in Brisbane.
The Palaszczuk government loves a prop, and Miles was no exception on Wednesday, splendidly decked out in a Matildas scarf in the grandstand of Brisbane’s iconic Suncorp Stadium. But he was quickly thrown off balance when reporters demanded information on the pressing issue of when Queensland’s Covid cases were going to peak.
To put it kindly, his reply was a bumbling mess: “I’m, ahh, not as up to date on the (Covid) briefing as I was for most of the, ahh, pandemic but, ahh, when the, ahh, Health Minister’s next up, I’m sure she will be able to outline that for you.”
But that didn’t get him off the hook, with reporters turning to Queensland’s “surge capacity”, or when hospitals would reach the point when they were unable to cope with new admissions.
“(Would it be) 2000 people? 3000 people? Ten per cent of staff off sick?” Miles was asked. Again, he gave a comically blank answer. “I don’t have to hand those exact numbers, ahh, but I recall from, ahh, the time we were working on them, ahh, that they, ahh, considered all of the situations that we were seeing in other countries.”
He was then asked whether he thought there should be “more information out there and more press conferences?”
“Oh, pfft, that’s a hard question to answer, I feel like we’ve been very accessible (giggles) on, ahhhh, these questions and all of the questions folks have.”
It capped off a bad week for Miles, who of course hit the national stage last year when he called Scott Morrison a “c…” at a public rally. He also had to face claims by Brisbane’s Courier Mail that he had told Ipswich Mayor Teresa Harding in a secret recording not to give information to Labor’s MPs in the city, fearing they may “blab to the media” about government information.
With Miles’s pratfalls clearly showing no signs of subsiding, the man who would be premier is starting to make even the trouble-prone Palaszczuk seem like Indira Gandhi.
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‘Protect the ABC’: Albanese’s visit to Buttrose
Word has reached Diary that Anthony Albanese will make his first trip as Prime Minister to visit ABC chair Ita Buttrose at Aunty’s Ultimo headquarters next week, and the mail out of Canberra is that he’ll come bearing gifts for the public broadcaster.
Diary can reveal that Albanese will visit Ultimo on Friday week, with the visit including his attendance at a gala ABC 90th birthday dinner at Studio 22 (which, as the long-term Sydney home of the ABC’s flagship panel show Q+A, has for years been a familiar stomping ground for Albo).
We’re told the PM will use the visit and a keynote address at the dinner to formally announce that the government will “protect the ABC” and provide “funding certainty”, largely by moving from a three-year to a five-year funding cycle for the public broadcaster. The government’s reasoning is that this move will take the ABC’s funding out of the election cycle and beyond a likely 2025 federal poll. We’re told Albanese and his partner Jodie Haydon will be seated with Buttrose and ABC managing director David Anderson.
Apart from celebrating the ABC’s 90 years so far, the PM will argue that the move away from triennial funding will “safeguard” it against political interference.
While the country’s new-ish first couple will be the star attractions at the dinner, all sides of Australian politics will attend. From the Labor side, apart from Albo, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland will be there, with Arts Minister Tony Burke also on the invitation list. From the Coalition side, both Rowland’s predecessor Paul Fletcher (now opposition spokesman for science and the arts) and opposition spokeswoman for communications Sarah Henderson will be present. The Greens will send along Parliamentary Friends of the ABC member Sarah Hanson-Young, while Helen Haines will represent independent MPs.
There is also said to be an array of past ABC heavyweights, led by former chair Donald McDonald and ex-managing director Mark Scott, along with Sydney Opera House CEO Louise Herron, Sydney Symphony Orchestra chair Geoff Wilson and Australia Council for the Arts CEO Adrian Collette.
ABC on-air personalities will include 7.30 host Sarah Ferguson, Insiders’ David Speers, Alan Kohler, Geraldine Doogue and Fran Kelly.
It’s likely, we’re told, that in confirming its protection of the ABC, Albo’s address is also likely to take a few barbed shots at previous Coalition administrations led by Scott Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull, and the famously fractious relationship they had with the public broadcaster – most notably numerous letters of complaint from the successive Coalition governments.
Another policy likely to feature will be Labor’s pre-election commitment to provide $8m a year in funding to the ABC to allow it to deliver Australian content to Pacific nations. That funding commitment was famously mocked by Morrison during the federal election campaign: “It’s farcical: their answer to solving the Solomon Islands problem is to have Q+A in Honiara,” the now very ex-PM told 2GB’s Ben Fordham at the time. But happen it will.
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Riminton rejects ‘talk over the woman’ claim
He might have been very publicly scolded by America’s newest ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy in Sydney on Friday for talking “over the woman”. But speaking to Diary, Ten’s national affairs editor Hugh Riminton has rejected the claim – and he’s won support from an unlikely quarter: the rival Seven network.
It all started when Kennedy, in her first press conference in Australia, singled out Riminton for special attention when she called him out for allegedly talking over Seven reporter Isabelle Mullen when the pair jockeyed to ask her a question. “Did you just talk over the woman?” Kennedy asked him in front of a fevered media scrum.
Riminton quickly took to social media to out himself as “the reporter who the new US Ambassador-designate #CarolineKennedy ticked off”. But when we reached him on the weekend, he respectfully disagreed with the new US Ambassador’s suggestion that he had interrupted Mullen. “This is the honest account: as the tape would show, I started asking the question before my esteemed colleague from Channel 7,” he told Diary. “But I’m completely not thin-skinned about it. Caroline Kennedy is entirely within her rights to conduct her news conference how she wants to. If she wants to smack me down, she’s absolutely within her rights.”
However, in his own defence, Riminton stressed that it was “inevitable” in press conferences that fellow reporters, male or female, would at times talk over each other. “It’s an easy strikeout for a bloke, but these are competitive environments,” he said.
“All we can do as journalists is when the opportunity arises, ask the question.”
Meanwhile, over at Seven, that network’s Sydney head of news, Jason Morrison, says that Mullen was completely unfazed by the Riminton encounter. “Isabelle wasn’t offended at all,” Morrison tells Diary. “She’s a tough reporter and a front-footed reporter. Journos all talk over each other and they all want their question answered. And whether they be men or women, they do it all the time.”
Morrison concluded by saying that Friday’s experience should be a taste of what’s to come for Kennedy with the media down under: “Welcome to the Australian way,” he said.
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The Lisa Wilkinson soap opera continues
The chaos surrounding Lisa Wilkinson at The Project continues. After five weeks away from Ten’s panel show, Wilkinson made a surprise announcement on Sunday, via her Instagram page, that she was returning to the hosts’ desk that night.
It’s her first appearance on the panel since her controversial Logies speech five weeks ago. Insiders say the decision to put Wilkinson back on The Project panel was a last-minute one.
But don’t assume this represents a permanent return just yet for Wilkinson, who is fast becoming the on-again, off-again host of The Project.
Diary has learnt there is a catch, with sources close to the Wilkinson camp revealing she is returning to host only during the next week. She will anchor The Project for four nights through to next Sunday – including the Thursday and Friday editions of the program – before heading off on holidays for most of August.
Confused? We were too. Apparently, Wilkinson raced back from a whirlwind US trip during which she interviewed the likes of American Pie composer Don McLean, celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred and, apparently, a bunch of US film and pop stars.
Wilkinson has been off The Project panel since the Logies. Sources close to Wilkinson told Diary at the time that her absence was due to the high emotional ‘‘toll’’ from the media storm the speech caused.
Wilkinson evaded the hovering paparazzi earlier this month when she was quietly and securely whisked out of Australia.
With Wilkinson’s permanent return to the show apparently still some weeks away, it is understood Ten will proceed with a plan to install temporary female hosts to fill in for her on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays in coming weeks.
As we noted last week, that void will be filled by a combination of regular stand-in host Georgie Tunny, Studio 10 host Sarah Harris and Sydney radio personality Rachel Corbett.
What happens after that, it seems, is anyone’s guess.
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‘No show’ for Red Carpet Anna
Maybe it’s down to recent claims in the Brisbane media that Annastacia Palaszczuk spends too much on the red carpet. Whatever the reason, the Queensland Premier was a no-show at one of the Queensland social events of the year, the Gold Coast Lady Mayoress’s ball, where Surfers Paradise property tycoons mingled with senior politicians, media types, colourful racing identities, ex-meter maids and the usual array of Cavill Ave spivs.
From the media, ex-2GB radio king Alan Jones made a surprise appearance, along with Sky News CEO Paul Whittaker, spotted locked in conversation with his Queensland editor Peter Gleeson. Former federal home affairs minister and Gold Coast MP Karen Andrews was there, while the business side was represented by Warner Bros Movie World part-owner Clark Kirby and Gold Coast Titans part-owner and chair Rebecca Frizelle.
High-profile Gold Coast property developer “Crazy” Ron Bakir made a splash when he successfully bid $65,000 for a luxury car at the night’s charity auction, only to donate it back to generate extra funds. However, with Palaszczuk and Opposition Leader David Crisafulli both sending their apologies, it was left to the Gold Coast’s Liberal-aligned Lord Mayor, Tom Tate, to provide the real entertainment with his signature Elvis Presley impersonation. Word is that Tate’s favourite Elvis song is Suspicious Minds – appropriate, given that he was making no secret of his disdain for the Palaszczuk government’s controversial decision to omit him from BOCOG, the organising committee for the Brisbane Olympics.
Tate told all and sundry on the night that this was a travesty, given the Gold Coast is to host nine of the Olympics’ 30 events.
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Ramsay St: Australia’s most dangerous address
After 37 years and nearly 9000 episodes, Australia’s original international super-soap Neighbours will come to an end on Thursday night with the long-awaited reappearance of many of its biggest stars.
Diary can confirm that international pop star Natalie Imbruglia and Holly Valance are the newest big names to appear in the finale. This on the back of news on Sunday that Hollywood A-lister Margot Robbie will join the likes of Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan and Guy Pearce in returning to the show, with a Neighbours wedding the big excuse to bring the cast back together.
Diary is not overly well-versed in soapie-speak, but Neighbours production types have confirmed to us that the reason for the return of the international glitterati is to witness the marriage of 28-year Ramsay Street stalwart Jarrod ‘‘Toadfish’’ Rebecchi (played by Ryan Moloney) to Melanie Pearson (played by Lucinda Cowen).
But even by soapie standards, poor Toadfish has been incredibly unlucky in love, having prematurely lost two wives – one when his car drove off a cliff, and another dying in his arms of cancer. He also happened to leave another wife-to-be at the altar. So here’s hoping poor Toadfish’s fourth wedding day involves some sort of change in luck. Toadie’s experience is just one example of Neighbours characters who haven’t had the rub of the green in life. Indeed, the raw statistics show just how dangerous Ramsay Street can be.
Insiders have revealed to Diary that during the show’s run, along with 39 weddings and 17 births, there have been no fewer than 35 natural disasters (including a memorable Melbourne cyclone), 115 car crashes and 64 deaths. Most scarily, there have been more than 100 kidnapping and hostage situations. To put it in perspective, that’s three abductions a year during the show’s near-four decade run.
And all of this on an allegedly quiet Melbourne cul-de-sac…
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Seven’s ‘new normal’ for Games coverage
The days of sending a full media contingent to international sporting events are over.
Diary hears Seven has discovered a silver lining in the harsh realities of the Covid border restrictions in the past two years, which affected its coverage of last year’s Tokyo Olympics and the Beijing Winter Olympics. The restrictions have now given the network the confidence it needs to generate some decent cost savings in screening global sporting events by producing much of its coverage remotely in Australia.
A lean Seven contingent left over the weekend to head to Birmingham for the Commonwealth Games starting later this week, outnumbered three to one by the 200-plus Seven staff who will be working on the coverage remotely back home. As one prominent example, the network’s prime time Commonwealth Games hosts, Hamish McLachlan and Abbey Gelmi, will anchor the coverage from Seven’s Eveleigh studios in inner-city Sydney, not Birmingham.
However, Seven insiders say that a team of specialist commentators will still be heading to Birmingham to witness the action first-hand, led by the inimitable Bruce McAvaney, swimming star Cate Campbell, Tamsyn Manou and Mel McLaughlin.
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