Some of the newly-elected teal independent MPs are quickly learning that their crusade for transparency in government cuts both ways, with media types now insisting the teals be transparent about their personal financial behaviour.
Already, we had MP for North Sydney and self-described climate change warrior Kylea Tink, last week forced to account for her stakes in fossil fuel companies Viva Energy and Beach Petroleum – claiming she was driven by “shareholder activism” and creating “change from within”.
Now the latest teal to be given the third degree about her personal finances is the Member for Mackellar, Sophie Scamps, who faced a grilling from the normally mild-mannered host of Sky’s NewsDay, Tom Connell, after it was quietly revealed that she owns personal assets through opaque family trusts. Despite some persistent questioning from Connell, Scamps seemed determined to shed as little light as possible on what was actually in her trusts.
First, Connell invoked Scamps’s alleged zeal for transparency as a cue to ask what was actually in the trusts – before being met by the MP’s equivalent of a brick wall.
“Again, transparency: your pecuniary interests, as is required, lists a family trust, but we have no idea what’s in that trust,” Connell started. “Would you go further and list on your pecuniary interests what assets are held in that trust?”
First, the Sky host was met with a classic ‘non-answer’ answer. “Look, they are small family trusts with my husband and I,” Scamps said. “Yes, I think they’re superannuation trusts.”
But a quietly-persistent Connell wasn’t about to be fobbed off that easily: “You’re not doing anything against the rules. I’m not saying that. But you’ve spoken a lot about transparency. You can put more detail on these forms if you’d like. So does that mean you’ll list what assets are held by the various trusts?”
Scamps was again vague: “Well, my husband sat down, I think, last weekend and did that. And I think we put as much, um, information as, as we deemed was possible. If there’s anything else we can put out there, I’ve got no problem with that. That’s totally fine with me.”
Connell doggedly tried one more time to get the transparency crusader to show a bit more transparency: “From what I’ve seen, it says family trust. We don’t know what assets are (in it). Again, not saying it’s against the rules, but you’re saying you’ll have a look? You’ll go further? You’ll list the assets and be the example, I suppose, that you say others should follow?”
Scamps replied: “Look, I’m happy to do that. I don’t think there’s a whole lot in there that’ll be of interest.”
We’re sure Scamps will be rushing back to Sky ASAP with more details about what’s in her family trusts – all in the name of ‘transparency’, of course.
-
Labor employs seatwarmers at Jobs Summit
Everyone knows Jim Chalmers worked hard to extract as much credit as possible for last week’s Jobs and Skills Summit in Canberra. Now Diary has learnt that he employed a string of backbench ‘seatwarmers’ – who weren’t technically invited to the new government’s big dance – as part of his publicity drive.
Chalmers’s aim, it seems, was to win brownie points with junior Labor MPs by allowing them to bask in the reflected glory of at least spending some time inside the summit, despite not being invited. That explains why some happy snaps of the backbenchers have popped up, carefully crafted to make it look as though they were actually right in the heart of the summit’s proceedings.
It seems that the Treasurer’s clever idea was to give the MPs the opportunity to post photos on their official Facebook pages: to make it look to their constituents like they had a seat at the table.
Diary is told the Chalmers’s charm offensive and photo ops went into overdrive for members of the Labor ‘class of 2022’: newbie MPs for Higgins, Michelle Ananda-Rajah, for Hunter, Dan Repacholi, and for Swan, Zaneta Mascarenhas, along with veteran Victorian backbencher Julian Hill.
Coincidentally, all four that day just happened to post near-identical snaps on their MP Facebook pages, giving the appearance they were in deep conversation with Chalmers, who was posing up a storm as he convincingly portrayed the role of Labor’s most brilliant mind.
But one small detail in the photos gave the seat-warming charade away.
In the foreground of the photo of the MPs was the place card of one Anthony Albanese, PM of Australia. That’s right, folks – just as Albo had taken temporary leave of his seat, Chalmers generously shuffled through the Labor junior burgers to sit at the big chair at the summit – at least for long enough to get the money shot with the Treasurer. The question is, did Albo know? It reminds Diary of the famous Seinfeld episode when Kramer ran away with an Emmy, after seat-warming at the awards ceremony.
Chalmers’s photo op with the backbenchers was a masterclass in both social media spin and caucus management: two things dear to any future leadership aspirant.
The MPs got to show their constituents via Facebook how busy they were in Canberra, while the Treasurer won their undying loyalty: valuable currency for the day in the perhaps not-too-distant future when Chalmers himself comes to warm Albo’s seat.
–
Peter FitzSimons tackled by NRL star in Saudi spat
Peter FitzSimons’s vocal opposition to the defection of Australia’s British Open champion Cameron Smith to the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV golf tour has spilled over into a virtual stoush during the week between the Nine papers’ columnist and one of the NRL’s biggest stars.
It all started when the worst kept secret in international golf was confirmed last week with the formal announcement that Smith, the world’s number two ranked golfer, was moving to the LIV tour for a reputed $140m.
Following that revelation, FitzSimons on Wednesday afternoon posted on Twitter a previous article he’d written that was highly critical of the Saudi Arabian government’s use of the LIV Tour – and of players like Smith — for the purpose of “sportswashing”, to improve its poor human rights reputation. In recent weeks, he has lashed out at the “blood money” of the LIV Tour and its impact on the sport.
But Fitzy may not have expected to cop a ball and all tackle, in full view of his 137,000 Twitter followers, by Queensland State of Origin star and Melbourne Storm prop Christian Welch: a commerce graduate and MBA student widely regarded as one of the smartest players in the NRL.
Welch didn’t merely launch into a passionate defence of Smith; he also pointed to a double standard in FitzSimons’s criticism, because of his past paid endorsement of Uber Eats in an advertising campaign.
Why did Welch make Fitzy’s participation in the Uber ads an issue? Because in 2016, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman got in at the ground floor to become the largest single investor in what was then the world’s hottest start-up, Uber, purchasing a US$3.5bn stake.
Welch, who’s currently off the field injured, tagged FitzSimons on Twitter along with a screenshot of the Nine papers’ columnist starring in the Uber Eats campaign, asking him: “It’s OK for you to profit (albeit indirectly) from the Saudi investment fund but not a golfer?”
Welch also pointed to Saudi investments in other US corporate giants: “Same money funding LIV invested in Uber, Boeing & Starbucks. Are you complicit when you get a ride home or a cappuccino? How far does it go? I don’t recall the same outrage at those companies, but dare a golfer accept the cash on offer.”
While Welch received plenty of support for his point of view, there was some backing for FitzSimons as well.
Fitzy particularly liked one response from Nine reporter Mark Gottlieb, who bluntly rejected Welch’s argument: “It’s like saying you can’t criticise America’s war in Afghanistan because you bought McDonald’s for lunch.”
Rather than directly take on Welch, FitzSimons instead enthusiastically responded to the message of support from Gottlieb: “Brilliant,” he posted.
–
Steven Miles plays the clown on spin unit
When the cat’s away, the mice will play. While the queen of Queensland, Annastacia Palaszczuk, was attending the Jobs Summit jamboree in Canberra, her loyal deputy and heir apparent, Steven “Giggles” Miles, played pretend premier on Thursday. And it was a memorable cameo. The temporary premier cracked some jokes about Palaszczuk’s seemingly endless attempts to hire the entire Brisbane press gallery, despite widespread criticism of the practice in the Queensland media. The government’s latest hire was its shock poaching last month of Nine’s Lane Calcutt, Brisbane’s most senior TV journalist, to join the Premier’s 30-plus spin team.
Miles used the departure of Courier-Mail state political reporter Domanii Cameron to make fun of Palaszczuk’s apparent monopoly on journalists leaving the profession – mischievously claiming Cameron had defied the rush to join the government’s spinners. “Honourable members may be aware that today is the last day that Domanii Cameron will be covering parliament for the Courier-Mail,” he said. “I can report that she is breaking with tradition, and is not coming to work for the Palaszczuk government. But (she) will instead serve the community at the Royal Flying Doctor Service.” Jokes aside, Miles isn’t too far off the mark. As Diary noted last month, Palaszczuk’s media team now forms the second-biggest newsroom in Brisbane, behind only the Courier-Mail. Meanwhile, Nine is playing hardball with Calcutt as he serves out his notice period. Diary is told the network’s Brisbane news boss, Amanda Paterson, has hooked the veteran reporter off the political beat for the final weeks of his 35-year tenure with Nine, to avoid any perception of favouritism towards his new employer.
–
‘She’s just a celebrity’: Ita’s Meghan take-down
ABC chair Ita Buttrose definitely won’t be on Meghan Markle’s Christmas card list, after delivering a brutally blunt and unexpected assessment of the one-time working royal over her recent publicity blitz.
Buttrose was last week lured back to her former stomping ground of Ten’s battling morning program Studio 10, reviving the glory days from a few years back when the ABC chair used to preside over the show’s panel.
And Buttrose pleased Studio 10 producers no end by making a surprise foray into the spicy territory of royal politics and delivering a few brickbats for Markle ahead of her return to the UK this week – claiming that she deliberately makes “provocative statements” to attract attention. “Good luck to her,” Buttrose told her former Studio 10 co-host Sarah Harris. “I don’t want to be unkind, but she’s just a celebrity. There’s nothing wrong with being a celebrity, but she’s one of many – whereas once, she was a princess of the realm. (Now) she goes on about her business of being a celebrity.”
Buttrose said that Markle and Prince Harry’s evolution from being full-time royals into becoming full-time “celebrities” had made it their urgent mission to “stand out in a crowd” of other celebrities. “They don’t have the royal family to fall back on (anymore),” she said. “So they have to make every interview count. So, because of the other plans she’s got – you know, the books, the movies, whatever – she wants to make sure she stands out in a crowd. So she makes provocative statements.”
By contrast, Buttrose made it very clear that she was a fan of Queen Elizabeth – with the Queen of the ABC revealing that she had lunch with that other monarch at Sydney Town Hall several years back.
“The protocol is you don’t discuss what you talk about with the Queen, so I tend to observe that. But I could tell you that she was very well informed about Australia, she loves Australia, and she’s well informed about world affairs, which we discussed.”
–
Alan Joyce vs ABC: battle comes to a head
Four Corners is pressing ahead with the screening of its Qantas investigation on Monday night, despite continuing jousting behind the scenes between the national carrier and the ABC’s flagship current affairs show.
Diary hears that right up to the 11th hour, Qantas boss Alan Joyce has stuck to his line we revealed last week: that he will only submit to a full ABC interview if it is screened in its entirety on Four Corners, with no edits. It is a condition that the ABC says it will not accept. We’re told that by way of compromise, the ABC had offered that if Joyce agreed to an interview, it would run in full on one or more of its digital platforms, possibly including iview – but not on Four Corners itself. The Qantas boss has rejected that offer.
With relations remaining frosty between the national public broadcaster and the national carrier (and no sign so far that the interview will take place), Four Corners is likely to rely on the feisty comments by Joyce at the Qantas results briefing 11 days ago to present the airline’s side of the story.
–
‘No bids’ for tennis at The Lodge with Albo
Australia’s corporates seem to be missing a golden opportunity to make their mark with the new government, ahead of the press gallery’s night of nights at the Midwinter Ball at the Great Hall of Parliament House on Wednesday.
The highlight of the event (pandemic-delayed for three years) is an online charity auction in which the country’s most senior politicians, including Anthony Albanese, Jim Chalmers, Penny Wong, Tanya Plibersek, Richard Marles and Peter Dutton, offer themselves up to the highest bidder for various one-off events. The aim is to raise big money for some of the country’s most worthy charities.
There’s just one problem: corporate Australia doesn’t seem to be interested. At the time of going to print, most of the plum offerings – including tennis at The Lodge with Albanese, a three-course “power feast” with Wong and Plibersek, a night with Chalmers at a Brisbane Broncos NRL game, a round of golf with Marles, an “intimate dinner” with four of the Teal independents (Allegra Spender, Zoe Daniel, Monique Ryan and Kylea Tink), and a night with Peter Dutton at a Brisbane Heat BBL game – had all attracted no bids, despite reserves of up to $5000.
Diary finds it odd that the Ball’s glittering array of cash-rich sponsors – including Telstra, Westpac, Macquarie Bank, Coke, PwC, Qantas and Woodside – don’t have a couple of pennies to rub together for some pretty rare access, all to benefit charity.
Amid endless tales from Canberra of millions allegedly spent on lobbying, $5000 seems decent value for a full day of tennis and refreshments with Albo at The Lodge.
Tonagh quits ABC board early
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland and an independent panel will now need to find a replacement for the ABC’s deputy chairman just months out from a federal election.
The Australian’s 50 Best Photos of 2024
From the US election to the Paris Olympics, from natural disasters to wars, and from tragedies to triumphs, as well as the 60th Anniversary of The Australian, 2024 was the best of times and worst of times.