It was something of a shock to see Indigenous Liberal Senator Jacinta Price turn up with Sarah Ferguson on 7.30 on the ABC last Monday night, given her outspoken views on the public broadcaster.
Price’s appearance came just days after she launched stinging criticism of the ABC for its much-discussed coverage of a supposed “white supremacy” meeting in Alice Springs.
Price had taken several potshots at Aunty – both on social media and on TV – in the lead-up to the Ferguson interview, calling for “a complete investigation” of what she claimed was “left wing bias”.
She later went on Sky to claim that in its reports about the Alice Springs meeting, the ABC “had 3000 people to choose from and they chose to listen to the voices of three bleeding hearts”.
She also told Sky of the ABC’s coverage of Alice Springs: “They don’t care for the kids on the streets.”
So was Price’s appearance on 7.30 last Monday an attempted square-up by the ABC, in the wake of its apology days earlier that its coverage of the meeting didn’t contain enough voices?
Both the Price camp and the ABC say that this wasn’t the case.
Diary has now learnt that Price’s appearance on 7.30 was far from a last-minute development – and in fact the ABC’s flagship nightly current affairs program had been chasing Price for some time.
“She’s been invited on 7.30 for six months now – but we didn’t engage until it worked for the Senator,” a source from the Price camp tells Diary.
Until last week, Price had rejected appearing with Ferguson despite numerous requests.
But her desire to speak about a private members’ bill she introduced last week to allow for greater federal oversight of alcohol bans in the Northern Territory persuaded her to break her 7.30 boycott.
When she eventually appeared, Price told Ferguson that she was introducing the bill because she felt the NT government “can’t be trusted” if alcohol bans need to be introduced in the future.
Greens leader forces Midwinter Ball fossil fuel ban
The brewing war on fossil fuel sponsorships of major events is only just beginning.
Last year, it was Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins who flexed his muscles as an environmental activist, by publicising his objections to power company Alinta Energy as the major sponsors of Australia’s summer of cricket.
Now federal parliament’s biggest media event of the year – the Midwinter Ball – has been copping flak from Canberra’s most vocal political activists, the Greens, over its own fossil fuel sponsorships.
Diary is told that Greens leader Adam Bandt has been pushing forcefully to ban two fossil fuel companies, Woodside Energy and Shell, from continuing as sponsors of the Midwinter Ball this year.
For the uninitiated, the ball is the annual June event that famously sees political leaders and journalists ditch hostilities for one brief night, all in the name of charity.
But Bandt and other members of the Greens are furious that Woodside and Shell have remained headline sponsors of the event.
Insiders tell Diary that Bandt has written letters to the ball’s organiser, the federal Parliamentary Press Gallery, demanding that it drops both Woodside and Shell as sponsors.
You may recall that Bandt’s partner, Claudia Perkins, turned up at last year’s Midwinter Ball – which raised $350,000 for various charities – in a ball gown painted all over in red and black with the messages “COAL KILLS GAS KILLS”, in relation to the Woodside and Shell sponsorships.
Sarah Hanson-Young made a similar statement on her dress for the 2022 event, while fellow Greens senators Jordon Steele-John and Larissa Waters both made scathing real-time statements on Twitter while the event unfolded.
The Press Gallery’s president, ABC political reporter Jane Norman (who replaced the Nine papers’ chief political correspondent David Crowe in the role after he quietly stepped down in December), is believed to be resisting the Greens’ calls to dump Woodside and Shell from the event altogether.
Instead, Diary hears Norman has been in the preliminary stages of negotiating a compromise to the problem – which would involve Woodside and Shell dropping off as official sponsors of the event, and instead buying a table to attend and help to support its charity activities. That’s a proposal which will have to be signed off by both the energy companies and the Press Gallery committee before it can proceed.
Meanwhile, we’re told Woodside and Shell are bemused by all the fuss.
One source with knowledge of the energy companies’ thinking says the sponsorship was never about getting publicity: “It’s a charity event – (the sponsorship) has been all about giving money to support the charities.”
Neil Mitchell’s pigeon plan for Andrews statue
Dan Andrews may be on the verge of immortalisation in the form of a statue – but not all members of the media are happy about it.
Andrews will hit the 3000 day milestone as Premier this month, qualifying him for the bronzed version of himself – perhaps in a North Face jacket – to pop up at 1 Treasury Place, Melbourne, alongside fellow former Premiers John Cain, Rupert Hamer, Henry Bolte and Albert Dunstan. (We’re assuming Andrews’s 3000 days includes the three months of sick leave he took following his infamous holiday house ‘incident’ in March 2021).
But who better than Neil Mitchell to play the role of party pooper for the statue celebrations.
The top-rating 3AW morning host mischievously tells Diary he plans to marshall as many pigeons as possible to literally rain on the bronzed version of the Victorian Premier: “We are taking advice on how to train several flocks of pigeons to make the appropriate political statement,” Mitchell says.
We think he’s joking.
But not in dispute is that Mitchell, who has been totally blanked for interviews by Andrews for more than five years, is nursing a grudge towards the Victorian Premier.
Mitchell organised for a 3AW reporter to ask Andrews at one of his press conferences during the week about whether he would have to “accept” the statue or if it was an “automatic” process.
In response, Andrews was a veritable picture of modesty: “Monuments are not important to me,” he asserted. “Genuinely, I have no idea. And it would not be something, I think, that would be a priority while, um, the person in question were in office.”
We believe you, Dan.
Meanwhile, Mitchell concedes that relations between the Andrews government and the 3AW broadcaster have only deteriorated since the election: “The boycott of me has got worse.”
Before the Victorian election, he says, while there was no Andrews on his show, Mitchell had deputy premier Jacinta Allan, and ministers including Treasurer Tim Pallas, Police Minister Lisa Neville and ex-Attorney-General Martin Pakula.
Mitchell says that with none of the Andrews ministry on his show anymore, he will change tack: “It’ll be less political. I’ll still do the issues, but not from a political angle.
Jeff Kennett’s warning for Dan
The man who ushered in Victoria’s statue policy for leaders of 3000 days or more while he was Premier in the 1990s, Jeff Kennett, has some surprisingly gracious words for the man who will finally claim the honour.
Diary called the former Liberal Premier last week to ask if he was opposed to Dan Andrews getting his own statue, given that the Labor Premier will claim the honour that once appeared to be Kennett’s inevitable destiny.
“I am not opposed to it at all,” Kennett told us. “I congratulate him – 3000 days is quite a feat, and he’s entitled to it, given the guidelines that were established.
In 1999, as Mr Kennett was storming towards what everyone (including him) thought would be a third election victory, he announced a historic tribute to Victorian premiers who had led the state for 3000 days or more.
But alas, it wasn’t to be. But Kennett does have one word of sage advice for Andrews once he passes the 3000 day milestone: that he should wait until the end of his term of office before allowing himself to be put on a literal pedestal.
“Don’t have your statue erected until you leave office or you leave the state – because it could be subjected to a great deal of affection,” he told Diary.
“There will be those who come to lay flowers at his feet – and there will be those who come to raise a leg at his feet.”
The Project battles after Carrie and Lisa exits
Have the high-profile losses of Carrie Bickmore, Peter Helliar and Lisa Wilkinson from The Project dealt a mortal blow to the ratings of Ten’s nightly panel show?
Diary has crunched the numbers on the Monday to Friday editions of The Project for the first month of the new line-up of the show – with Sarah Harris joining Waleed Aly and Hamish Macdonald on the show.
And how do the numbers stack up? Well, let’s just say they’ll raise the stress levels for Ten’s US owners.
For the show’s first half-hour from 6.30PM, The Project’s consolidated ratings in the five capital cities with Harris on board between January 9 and February 9 are down by 30 per cent compared with the same period in 2022 – during which Wilkinson was standing in on the weekday edition while Bickmore was on holidays – to an average of just 163,000 viewers per night.
The comparison with last year was even worse for The Project’s pivotal half-hour from 7PM, which leads directly into Ten’s key reality shows throughout the year.
Those capital city numbers are down 34 per cent compared with a year ago, from an average of 374,000 to 248,000 viewers a night.
The numbers are also well down on The Project’s nightly average throughout 2022 of 216,000 viewers for the 6.30PM half-hour and 322,000 viewers for the 7PM half-hour.
When the numbers for the full hour are combined, the comparison remains stark. In the five capital cities, The Project’s numbers for the first month on the Monday-to-Friday, 6.30 to 7.30 hour are down by 32 per cent on the same period last year, from 306,000 viewers to 207,000.
Ouch. Those sorts of figures won’t just be worrying for The Project itself, but for Ten’s entire reality-heavy line-up which includes MasterChef Australia, I’m A Celebrity and Survivor – all of which screen directly after Ten’s flagship panel show.
With the new incarnation of The Project off to a rocky start, Ten’s tentpole reality shows start at an instant disadvantage to their commercial rivals at Nine and Seven, which have much stronger lead-ins – in ratings terms at least – from A Current Affair and Home and Away respectively.
Despite the poor numbers, Ten is choosing to accentuate the positive, officially at least, arguing that the show’s youth-oriented audience translates to a more attractive demographic for advertisers. A spokeswoman for the network told Diary on Sunday: “The Project’s new line-up and re-energised show has already resonated with viewers making it the youngest skewing news and current affairs program on TV.”
Ten argues that the numbers also show that The Project’s audience is, on average, eight years younger than viewers of Nine News, and nine years younger than viewers of Seven News.
Sources close to The Project also strongly defend the initial performance of Harris – claiming that it was always going to take time for her to settle into the host’s chair after the departure of Bickmore, who had been with the show for its entire 13-year run until she left at the end of 2022.
Two more face-offs for Perrottet and Minns
The NSW election campaign may not yet be officially underway, but there are already negotiations going on behind the scenes for campaign debates.
Diary hears that the current thinking in NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet’s office is that there will be two more debates: one a Sky News/Daily Telegraph branded event, the other involving Nine TV and print.
The Sky/Daily Telegraph debate is being negotiated for western Sydney, with venues in Parramatta, Rooty Hill and Penrith all under consideration.
The format would be near-identical to the Sky ‘People’s Forum’ held in Brisbane in the lead-up to last year’s federal election.
The face-off would be hosted once more by Sky’s chief news anchor Kieran Gilbert, and see 100 undecided voters chosen at arm’s length by an independent research firm to directly ask questions of the two leaders.
Sky has proposed that the debate be held on March 22, just three days before the election date. Opposition leader Chris Minns has committed to that date, but Perrottet hasn’t (although Diary hears he has given broad assent to the debate taking place).
The other face-off between the two leaders would be a Nine TV/Sydney Morning Herald branded event. One possible scenario under discussion at Nine would see its Sydney newsreader Peter Overton anchoring, and SMH state political editor Alexandra Smith and the new drive host at the Nine-owned 2GB, Chris O’Keefe, grilling the two leaders.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, the first debate between Perrottet and Minns was held live to air on top-rating 2GB breakfast host Ben Fordham’s radio show, with most observers calling the encounter a draw.
Hanson cartoon’s funny take on Lidia’s exit
For entertainment value, it was hard to go past Friday’s instalment of Pauline Hanson’s hit cartoon series Please Explain (now back for another year after a stellar off-season fundraising effort involving bottles of rum), and its depiction of Lidia Thorpe’s exit from the Greens.
Satirically portraying her exit as a failed romance with Greens leader Adam Bandt, the cartoon portrays a broken-hearted Bandt begging Thorpe to stay.
“Please Lidia, I can’t do it without you!”, he pleads, as he even offers her a boom box in an attempt to persuade her to stay.
But Thorpe angrily replies: “I’m done, Adam! I’m an independent woman now,” as she zooms off with – you guessed it – a bikie mate.
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