Media Diary: Is Taylor Auerbach Australia’s most expensive babysitter?
The self-declared minder of former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann, the man who was accused of raping Brittany Higgins in Parliament House (a claim he has vehemently denied), certainly knows how to rack up expenses.
Whether it’s $10,000 worth of Thai massages, a $400 round of golf at Tasmania’s Barnbougle Links course, lavish dinners at high-end eateries that serve $361 steaks or tickets to the Test cricket in Sydney, Auerbach seemed extraordinarily committed to showing his BFF Lehrmann a good time.
The latest tranche of the never-ending stream of text messages between Auerbach and his boss, Spotlight executive producer Mark Llewellyn, tendered to the Federal Court on Friday, has thrown up yet more gobsmacking details of Auerbach’s penchant for Lehrmann-related largesse.
In December 2022, Auerbach tells Llewellyn that Lehrmann wanted to “get out of Tasmania for some reason”.
“He wants us to fly him to Sydney for a week. I wonder if we can fly him somewhere other than Sydney.”
Babysitter Auerbach wasn’t thinking local, either. “Can it be Fiji or somewhere cheap. I don’t like the idea of Sydney or GC (Gold Coast),” said Auerbach.
In the end, Operation Fiji didn’t take off, but Auerbach’s mounting bills just kept coming.
He told Llewellyn in one exchange that Lehrmann had “booked a table at Franca” and asked his boss if he could put the “food on the card”, while promising to “keep it reasonable”.
The restaurant, in Sydney’s trendy Potts Point, is far from cheap, but Llewellyn gave it the go ahead. “Reasonable,” he said.
But in a message soon after the Franca dinner was approved, Llewellyn called out Auerbach for racking up too many Uber charges.
“Mate, while on this – we have a lot of Uber receipts that appear to be to or from (Auerbach’s residence) and MP (Martin Place, the home of Seven’s one-time studios) … which seem to be personal??”
By this stage, in early January 2023, Spotlight senior producer Steve Jackson was also querying the spendathon.
“I find it bizarre that you’re taking them to dinner and drinks every night.
“It’s very unusual,” Jackson told Auerbach, referring to Lehrmann and his supposed adviser, John Macgowan.
Still, not long after, Seven agreed to the $104,000 cost of a 12-month lease for Lehrmann at a luxury apartment in Balgowlah, on Sydney’s northern beaches.
Bizarre. Was anyone calculating the return-on-investment?
Bruce backs Bruce
Expenses aside, another text message that Auerbach sent Llewellyn caught the attention of Diary.
“Bruce McWilliam fan of Bruce (Lehrmann)”, to which Llewellyn replied, “that is good news.”
For those who don’t know, McWilliam is Seven’s commercial director, and has been possibly the most influential behind-the-scenes figure in Australian media over the past four decades.
We wonder what was behind Bruce’s admiration for Bruce?
Interestingly, McWilliam took a swipe at Llewellyn last week in an issued statement from Seven, appearing to blame the executive producer for the network’s bungled search for internal documents that related to Lehrmann’s defamation action against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson.
Last month, McWilliam announced he was leaving Seven in coming weeks, after a 20-year stint at the station.
Go easy on me
Finally, amid the week-long circus that was the Lehrmann-Auerbach show, one random Spotlight skeleton fell out of the closet.
You’ll recall that back in 2021, Weekend Sunrise co-host Matt Doran travelled to London to interview superstar songstress Adele about her new album.
As has been well documented, Doran “missed” the email that included the album, he got caught out in the interview when the singer asked him what he thought about it, and he was subjected to a disproportionate media pile-on, which prompted him to issue an unqualified mea culpa. And fair enough, too – he had a shocker.
But did Doran actually take a hit for the team?
The producer on that trip was one T. Auerbach.
Sources at Seven claim that Doran was hard done by, and that the blame for the botched Adele interview should have been shouldered equally by Doran and Auerbach.
“It’s the producer’s job on these kinds of stories to make sure all the research is done, and that the reporter has everything they need. But when the Adele thing blew up, Taylor didn’t cop any of the heat, publicly.”
Diary is not suggesting that Auerbach actually received the relevant email from Adele’s reps, only that others in the industry are miffed that he didn’t make it his mission to obtain it on behalf of his reporter.
Diary sought comment from Auerbach and Doran, but we didn’t hear back.
Tick, tick, tick
The nation’s incoming governor-general Sam Mostyn ticks many boxes on gender and social issues, which undoubtedly helped convince Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that she was the best candidate for the vice-regal position.
Mostyn has never shied away from publicly championing social causes, including the failed voice referendum, and was even pictured donning a T-shirt emblazoned with the words, “women for the voice” in 2023. The appointment was given the tick of approval by King Charles III.
In 2015, Mostyn praised the Australian Republic Movement’s then chair Peter FitzSimons for his work in pushing the cause for Australia to cut ties with the monarchy.
Mostyn’s unearthed tweet, which was posted on December 7, 2015, but has since been deleted, reads: “Passionate advocacy for Australian republic @Peter-Fitz in Sydney today #ARM #AustralianRepublic #Australia #auspol”. Is this Albo’s horror moment, akin to former prime minister Tony Abbott’s ill-fated decisiontoaward the late Prince Philip Australia’s highest honour, a knighthood?
Perhaps comments like this are a good reason why Mostyn – who was never afraid to share her views online – deleted all traces of her social media ahead of her appointment being announced last week.
Mostyn has also referred to Australia Day in scrubbed tweets as Invasion Day, something which made headlines in some quarters of the media last week, and even made the UK press.
While the media has been having a lot of fun digging up Mostyn’s old social media posts, ABC Insiders’ host David Speers noted on Sunday, “it has certainly raised concerns for some on the right”.
The Age’s political correspondent, Paul Sakkal, raised the Invasion Day tweets, but the Guardian Australia’s political editor Karen Middleton was quick to interject and warn it could all just be a conspiracy theory.
“I think we need to be careful because there is a bit of suggestion that some of these may have been doctored and we don’t know for sure,” Middleton mused.
But Sakkal disagreed: “There was no denial on that and it was viewable in a way back machine internet archive which is true to form, I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
King Charles III accepted Albo’s recommendation to give Mostyn the plum role, which will see her take home an annual salary of anywhere from $425,000 to $495,000 for the next five years, and enjoy plush digs at Government House in Yarralumla.
So is she a republican?
Diary reached out to Mostyn but we didn’t hear back.
FitzSimons’ successor, Craig Foster, all but answered our question.
Posting on social media platform X, Foster said: “An inspired choice in Sam Mostyn, a genuine, beautiful human who cares about others.
“One that I’m sure Australians would make, if we had the choice.
An inspired choice in Sam Mostyn, a genuine, beautiful human who cares about others.
— Craig Foster (@Craig_Foster) April 2, 2024
One that I’m sure Australians would make, if we had the choice.
Rather than asking for the approval of a King.
In fact, Sam would be a wonderful President of the Australian Republic. https://t.co/ae8e8pczU5
“Rather than asking for the approval of a King.
“In fact, Sam would be a wonderful President of the Australian Republic.”
Whoa, one step at a time!
4BC shake-up
The whisper out of Nine Radio’s Brisbane bunker is that the breakfast trio at 4BC senses it’s in strife. So much so, the team are cutting their two-week holiday short to return to the airwaves after having just one week away.
The show’s hosts, Laurel Edwards, Gary Clare and Mark Hine, are back on Monday despite the week not counting in the official ratings period.
Spies told Diary the trio were originally scheduled to be away for a fortnight, leaving Peter “read a room” Fegan and Sofie Formica to fill in for them on week one of their break, and then Fegan taking the reins solo for week two. But with the trio’s ratings continuing to slide, there’s no time for an extended holiday.
When Edwards, Clare and Hine took over the breakfast slot in July 2022, they registered an audience share of 10.1 per cent straight off the bat.
But, in last month’s survey, their audience share had slipped to 7.5 per cent.
The next official results by ratings firm GfK are out on April 18 and there’s no doubt the bosses at Nine Radio, including managing director Tom Malone and station manager Holly Green, will be watching them closely given the trio’s contract is up mid year.
Insiders told Diary that Fegan and Formica, who filled in last week, are hungry to snatch the breakfast slot when the trio’s contract does end.
Fegan even let slip on the pair’s last show together on Friday that he and Formica have been on “trial” for the sought-after radio slot.
“Thank you for listening, it’s been a trial,” Fegan said, before quickly adding: “What do we call it, a trial and error this week.”
Formica could be heard giggling in the background.
She then added: “Yeah absolutely, it’s been a little bit of fun and it’s been something different for the two of us to have these early morning starts.”
But Fegan remains hopeful the pair will be back on air together soon, telling listeners: “Sofie, thank you so much, it’s been a pleasure and I hope we get to do this again sometime down the road.”
So watch out Laurel, Gary and Mark. They’re vying for your slot.
Formica will take this week off from her afternoons show and Greg Cary will fill in while Fegan will be back hosting 4BC weekends’ mornings program.
But whatever the case with 4BC, the station certainly isn’t matching the success of its sister stations, Melbourne’s 3AW and Sydney’s 2GB.
In the last ratings poll, 4BC came in sixth place with an overall audience share of 6.5 per cent.
And the station is also being investigated by the media regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, over its many commercial deals held by hosts, including Formica, that were not disclosed by 4BC until it was revealed by The Australian last year.
Watchdog’s bark
Speaking of ACMA, documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws by opposition communications spokesman David Coleman, have offered an interesting insight into the watchdog’s views on the ABC.
“We are disappointed in the ABC’s reactions to the ACMA’s findings in some previous investigations,” read ACMA’s notes for a recent Senate Estimates hearing.
“We consider that the ABC could be more open and responsive to feedback and findings made through the ACMA’s independent reviews.
And the scathing assessment didn’t end there.
It seems ACMA boffins aren’t too impressed with the ABC’s Code of Practice either, and the notes said: “One particular challenge we have in delivering on our responsibility regarding investigations of ABC content is that the ABC’s Code of Practice is, in our view, primarily focused on providing guidance to editorial and production staff”.
So, in short, the watchdog thinks there is room for improvement at the ABC.
Perhaps this is something for new chair Kim Williams to tackle, particularly given his recent comments on a podcast, during which he said if ABC staff aren’t impartial, they shouldn’t work at the ABC.
Coleman tends to agree.
“I welcome the recent comments from new ABC Chair, Kim Williams, on the need for impartiality in reporting from what is, after all, a publicly-funded and publicly accountable organisation,” he told Diary.
“The independent regulator is clearly unhappy with the ABC’s approach to its internal investigations, and that says a lot.
“When it gets it wrong the ABC must be prepared to admit its mistakes.
“Nobody is above criticism – especially organisations that are funded by taxpayers.”
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Is former Spotlight producer Taylor Auerbach Australia’s most expensive babysitter?