Very bad blood between Christopher Pyne, Peter Dutton

The real action of Sky’s take on the Turnbull coup, screened tomorow, will be the Pyne vs Dutton stoush.

Christopher Pyne and Peter Dutton.

The real action of tomorrow night’s screening of Bad Blood/New Blood, David Speers’ take on last year’s Turnbull coup, will be the Christopher Pyne versus Peter Dutton stoush.

We’re told Dutton gives Speers a particularly brutal on-camera assessment of Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership, as a justification for why last August’s coup against the then-PM was necessary.

But a particularly acerbic Pyne — a noted Turnbull supporter leading up to the coup — doesn’t pull his punches about the Home Affairs Minister.

Christopher Pyne. Picture: AAP.

Diary is reliably informed Pyne gives a withering assessment of Dutton, his actions last year, and his future prospects in politics. It’s interesting to note that Pyne seems to speak with a new freedom, unburdened of the responsibilities he had when he was in cabinet as defence minister.

Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton. Picture: AAP.

Watch out for plenty of TV microphones to greet Dutton and other senior ministers on the Turnbull coup as they shuffle back to Canberra in coming days.

ABC boss in damage control

“It’s an own goal from our own managing director.”

That was the general tenor of reaction from staff at the ABC’s Q&A and The Drum last week to reported comments by their new boss David Anderson last week which appeared to acknowledge the need to increase the diversity of views among guests on the ABC’s flagship panel shows.

“(From) time to time … the perspective of views that we represent is something that we could improve on,” Anderson allegedly told Nine newspapers last Monday, in a story referring to both Q&A and The Drum.

The comments follow ABC chair Ita Buttrose’s much-publicised Radio National interview last month in which she candidly conceded: “Sometimes I think we might be biased.”

Illustration: Johannes Leak

Anderson may not have used the dreaded b-word, “bias”, but his quoted comments went down like a lead balloon among key ABC editorial staff, particularly those working for the very ABC panel shows that Anderson seemed to be referencing, who felt their reputations were being unfairly maligned. As one ABC editorial staffer told us last week: “It was just unnecessary to say it.”

But did Anderson actually say what he was reported as saying?

By last Wednesday, facing a potential staff uproar, he was forced to address the issue at an internal “town hall” meeting with staff at the Eugene Goossens Hall in its Ultimo HQ in Sydney.

After being quizzed by the meeting’s moderator, the ABC News Channel’s Joe O’Brien, about his reported comments, the ABC boss appeared to call into question whether last Monday’s story had represented him correctly.

Diary hears that Anderson, in apparent full damage control mode, told the assembled ABC staff: “I didn’t talk about television, radio or any particular program … (The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age) talked about Q&A and The Drum.”

He went on to tell staff: “I do not see systemic bias (at the ABC).” However, he did note that there were always opportunities for it to increase diversity from “socio-economic” and “geographical” perspectives.

Ita Buttrose, chair of ABC and David Anderson, managing director of ABC. Picture: ABC

Temperature rising

Still on ABC panel shows, Scott Morrison has famously boycotted Q&A for seven years because of what he perceives as an anti-conservative bias.

But will Alan Jones now be joining him?

Last week, Jones made no secret of the fact he was furious with Q&A, a show on which he has ­frequently appeared in recent times, about his treatment on the show in his absence last Monday.

Atmospheric scientist David Karoly pointedly claimed on Q&A that Jones’s core assertions that humans were having little impact on the earth’s climate were “not factually accurate”.

“I am a climate scientist, and Alan Jones is wrong,” he said.

No one on the Q&A panel contradicted Karoly’s opinion. But a cranky Jones was not shy in doing so on his 2GB and 4BC show the next day, describing last Monday’s panel as a “stacked outfit” that was not designed for debate, but rather to further agendas.

Despite his fury, Jones tells Diary he will not be boycotting Q&A. “We don’t boycott people, but people boycott us — mainly dumb politicians,” Jones says.

“I won’t join in on this ABC bias discussion. Everyone’s biased. But we also all have a responsibility to go and argue our case.”

Coup plots and prayers

As a new term of federal parliament commences next week and politicians return to Canberra, old Liberal Party wounds will be reopened by two major media events: next week’s release of Niki Savva’s book Plots and Prayers, and tomorrow night’s launch of Sky News’s political documentary Bad Blood/New Blood.

Savva’s book on the coup against Malcolm Turnbull will be launched by none other than Laurie Oakes next week, timed to perfection for the start of the new parliament.

Tellingly, nervous cabinet ministers are already preparing to send staffers to buy copies as soon as Plots and Prayers hits bookshops on July 2.

One salacious detail of the book obtained by Diary shows why.

It’s an anecdote that involves an informal gathering of cabinet ministers a few months before the coup. A scenario tossing around the possibility of a Malcolm-free future, and who would be next in line if he was replaced, was brought up at the gathering.

The book mentions that the names of three senior ministers were put forward as possible replacements at the informal get-together: ScoMo, Julie Bishop and Peter Dutton.

But apparently one cabinet minister at the meeting was horrified at the prospect of a ScoMo prime ministership. The minister in question shocked colleagues by saying Morrison was an “absolute arsehole”.

Diary hears Savva’s book will reveal the identity of that minister. Expect fireworks.

Karl’s Logies comeback

It has been the most closely guarded secret of next Sunday’s Logies: will Karl Stefanovic score a seat at Australian TV’s night of nights?

Diary is told Nine last week provided its final RSVP list of about 90 to Logies organisers. Stefanovic’s name was not on it.

But that, it seems, is not the end of the conversation.

The question being asked around media circles in the last few days has been: could Stefanovic’s non-inclusion on the list in fact be a ruse by Nine to throw us all off the scent?

The answer is a definite yes.

Diary is told Stefanovic is dusting off his tux as we write this, readying himself for a grand coming-out parade, after months where the only sightings of him have been not on air but in women’s gossip magazines’ paparazzi shots.

However, while Karl will be on the Logies red carpet once more, his wife of six months J asmine Stefanovic will apparently take a leave pass.

Jasmine and Karl Stefanovic

Why the Logies comeback?

This Time Next Year, Stefanovic’s first show since he was dumped from the Today show all the way back in December, is due to screen around August. The Logies is seen as an important platform for Nine to plug the show to a wider audience, given ample cross-promotional opportunities it has from screening both programs.

Stefanovic, of course, has a storied history with the Logies. Back in 2009, he was famously drunk during the Today show the morning after the ceremony, while two years later, he received the big gong, the Gold Logie, with a speech in which famously he said his now estranged ex-wife Cassandra Thorburn had “the best arse I’ve ever seen”.

Will he, won’t he?

With Karl Stefanovic now set for his big TV comeback at the Logies, where will he sit?

Diary is reliably informed of one place at the ceremony where he will definitely not be located: with his old colleagues at Today’s table.

Instead, we’re hearing Stefanovic will be seated with the 60 Minutes team and other news and current affairs staff, at another Nine table.

But that separate seating plan is unlikely to stop the speculation about whether Stefanovic will return to Today.

Even Sportsbet is getting in on the act, with a one man betting market containing a single question: “Will Karl Stefanovic return as Today host in 2019?”

For all you hopeless punters out there, Stefanovic is listed as a $3 chance to return.

Parsons for CarAdvice

Diary has heard plenty of speculation since last month about the future of Alex Parsons, Nine’s events business boss, after the company announced last month it had sold off some of its biggest events, including the City2Surf running race and the SMH Half-Marathon, to a Chinese corporate giant.

Now we can reveal Parsons’ future — and it will be in a big role still at Nine.

Diary understands that as early as today, Parsons will be announced as the new boss of Nine’s CarAdvice motoring platform, which is currently being merged with another Nine car property, Drive. Nine announced last week that CarAdvice’s CEO of five years, Andrew Beecher, would be stepping down immediately. It also announced it was launching a global “search” for his replacement.

Well, after what must be the world’s quickest global search ever, Nine is now certain Parsons is the man for the job. He only returned to Nine six months ago, after being the network’s digital boss in his previous incarnation.

But Nine bosses, including CEO Hugh Marks, were very happy with Parsons’ work in selling Nine’s events business for $31m to a division of Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group.

Now they want him to expand the underperforming CarAdvice business, and while he’s at it, to make it bring in more cash.

The Hinch show

Diary’s item a couple of weeks back about senator Derryn Hinch heading back to TV was right on the money.

Hinch (whose brief cameo as a politician officially ends next Sunday) was spotted at Sky News’s Sydney studios in North Ryde on Thursday, filming ads for his new show on the network.

The one-hour show — to be eponymously titled Hinch — will be formally announced today. Diary can reveal it will run on Thursday nights from next week at 8pm, replacing Conroy & Kroger.

Meanwhile, we hear the old Labor and Liberal warriors Stephen Conroy and Michael Kroger will remain on the Sky payroll as panelists.

The Green machine

If the sight of the ABC’s chief election analyst Antony Green in Lycra is likely to get you hot and bothered, Diary advises you to look away right now.

After three major elections in the last nine months, Green leaves this morning on a well-earned overseas holiday.

But wouldn’t you know it? Lying on some Thai beach is not the holiday for our most famous election nerd. Instead, Green is headed on what sounds like a pretty intense four-week cycling trip from Belgrade in Serbia to Prague in the Czech Republic. Green tells us: “It’s only about 100km a day, so it’s pretty manageable.”

We’ll take your word for it, Antony!

Anthony Green.

But wouldn’t you know it. Given this is cycling, the sport that has brought us more scandals than we care to remember over the years, there is some scope for — shock, horror — cheating on the great Belgrade to Prague tour.

It apparently involves the scandalous misuse of a support car provided for the cyclists.

Some of Green’s fellow participants have dubbed the tour’s designated support vehicle the “Sag Wagon”, and are already planning to use it to hide away and put their feet up for some stages of the trip.

We hear that cyclists unable or unwilling to keep up with the trip’s peloton will simply dump their bike in the “Sag Wagon”, and sit out the stage with a glass of schnapps in hand.

Sounds like grounds for a protest.

Thankfully, Green himself is a paragon of cycling integrity, and will refuse any such unfair advantage over his fellow tour participants. “I never have, and never will stoop to using the Sag Wagon,” he proudly tells us.

Three more polls to go

Meanwhile, on the subject of his day job of analysing elections, Green, 59, tells us he has three more federal polls with the ABC in him before he finally calls it a day.

“The national retirement age is 67, so I figure a 2027 or 2028 federal election will probably see me out,” he says.

He also tells Diary that his epic European cycling adventure will not be entirely untouched by politics.

Green will make a considerable detour to Oxford University on his way to Belgrade.

He will be keynote speaker at an Australian politics lunch, on the unexpected election result and how it happened.