But now, even some of Miles’ greatest allies in the union movement where he made his name are worried his regular TV attacks on rivals around the country are damaging his standing with mainstream voters.
Diary has received reliable word Queensland’s top unionist and the pivotal backer behind Miles’s entry into politics, United Voice state secretary Gary ‘Blocker’ Bullock, commissioned secret high-level polling to establish exactly what voters think of his protégé.
The danger Bullock and fellow unionists see is the high-profile attacks, which have seen Miles pilloried both inside and outside of Queensland, could damage his long-term chances of becoming the next premier after Annastacia Palaszczuk.
In essence, we’re told Bullock has been asking one critical question: is Miles’s attack dog persona hurting his chances of being Palaszczuk’s successor?
At this point, Diary hears the answer to that question is a resounding yes.
The word is Bullock, effectively the chief puppet-master behind putting his protégé into parliament from his previous days as a union official, is concerned Miles (the bookies’ favourite to be Palaszczuk’s eventual successor) is vulnerable to internal party machinations that could spoil his long-term prospects. Bullock is said to be concerned after the research that Queenslanders see Miles as juvenile, and may not take him seriously.
The concern follows such pratfalls by Miles as using the C-word to describe the PM and his unsolicited advice to Trump to “try intravenous disinfectant” to cure Covid-19. (Miles has since claimed his colourful description of Morrison was the result of a “stutter”).
Diary hears Bullock’s main concern is the threat to Miles’s prospects of Treasurer Cameron Dick, who is from the Queensland Labor Party’s Right faction (Miles is from the Left). The big worry is Dick could do a Stephen Bradbury on the eventual succession of Palaszczuk, if Miles the attack dog continues to skate on thin ice with constituents.
As a result, Queenslanders can expect a more relatable Miles to work hard to dial up his likability factor, and dial down his attack mode, in coming weeks and months.
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The great Keneally media vanishing act
Where’s Kristina? That was the refrain of several media and Labor Party types during the week about the unusual absence of Senator Kristina Keneally from the airwaves in recent days.
What made Keneally’s media blackout even more unusual was her time-honoured “all publicity is good publicity” mantra, which has seen her be anything but low profile for much of her career.
Publicity stunts, corridor confrontations in front of TV cameras, and her very loud Twitter feed are all part of the formidable Keneally media game. Indeed, there has seldom been a quiet media moment in the former NSW premier’s colourful career.
But last week where there would normally be the usual explosion of Keneally colour and movement, instead there was radio silence.
It was Radio National breakfast host Fran Kelly who first raised the eyebrows of many in both the media and politics on Tuesday, when she revealed the response to her request for a Keneally interview. “We have been seeking an interview with Senator Keneally, but her office says she won’t be available this week,” Kelly revealed.
Odd. Normally, you’d expect Keneally to grab an opportunity from an ABC broadcaster with both hands. But this wasn’t any normal time. Things hadn’t been going so well for Keneally and her leader, Anthony Albanese, after she confirmed she was standing for the blue-ribbon Labor western Sydney seat of Fowler.
Keneally announced her candidacy amid much fanfare 10 days ago. Her main preoccupation in her initial statement seemed to be to prove the decision to move to the lower house was her own choice. “I want to talk a bit about why I made this choice. Why I chose to move to Fowler,” she said.
But in February, Keneally had been adamant in the National Press Club there was no way she was vacating her Senate spot. “I’m not moving,” she said bluntly.
The Australian’s senior political writer Troy Bramston last week seemed to have the answer about why Keneally had so radically changed her mind in the intervening seven months.
“Labor senator Deborah O’Neill was always going to win the support of union and faction powerbrokers to lead the (Labor NSW) Senate ticket,” Bramston wrote. “Keneally never had broad support to be parachuted into the Senate in the first place.”
Keneally and O’Neill, of course, have history when it comes to the media. As this column revealed a year ago, in a now-famous corridor confrontation at Parliament House in Canberra in front of colleagues, O’Neill accused Keneally of “leaking” to the media against her. When Keneally denied the leaks, O’Neill replied: “You keep sticking to that line … no one believes you anymore, Kristina.”
But after making enemies by being parachuted into the upper house in 2018, Keneally is now finding similar enemies in the lower house – once again for seemingly being parachuted into an enviable parliamentary job at the expense of other colleagues.
Keneally’s disappearing act with Fran Kelly and others seems to have a lot to do with the backlash she immediately attracted after displacing Tu Le, the Vietnamese Australian candidate from western Sydney who was set to contest Fowler.
On the day after the Tu Le controversy erupted, Keneally was still in feisty form at a meet and greet in Fowler. “Let me take this head on because I’m a little bit disappointed in some of the media coverage.” But the next week, Keneally and her trademark feistiness were nowhere to be found as negative media coverage bubbled on.
The question now circulating around Canberra and media circles is: how long can Keneally’s radio silence possibly last?
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Hadley’s ‘too woke’ text to Leigh Sales
The world has tipped on its axis when Australia’s highest-paid shock jock contacts the ABC’s marquee current affairs host to lament claims he has become “too left-wing and woke” — and she replies that she has copped a pile-on for being a “lickspittle for the Liberal Party”.
But that’s how it rolled when 2GB’s morning host Ray Hadley and the ABC’s Leigh Sales exchanged messages last week.
Hadley confides to Diary that he got in touch with Sales just as the 7.30 host was writing a column on the ABC website to reveal the vicious pile-on she has endured on Twitter recently for allegedly becoming a Liberal Party stooge.
Sales’s column came 24 hours after Diary’s extensive interview with Lisa Millar last week, where she revealed she was bullied off Twitter after “allegedly smiling” when she introduced a grab of former prime minister John Howard.
Sales wrote that Millar’s experience rang true, claiming it was “overwhelmingly left-leaning Twitter users who are targeting ABC journalists for abuse”.
She noted that the space was “dominated by views that are militantly pro-lockdown, pro-Covid zero and pro-Labor premiers”, particularly the “#istandwithdan movement”.
She also made the point that “some of the fairest, most experienced and non-partisan reporters in the country” — including Insiders host David Speers, Q&A host Stan Grant, RN breakfast host Fran Kelly and Millar — were “all derided on Twitter as lickspittles for the Liberal Party”.
Hadley tells Diary he contacted Sales last week to offer advice. “Cop a tip from an old bloke,” he told her. “Get away from Twitter. You don’t need it in your life.”
In referencing his own boycott of Twitter, Hadley told Sales it was “not just people at the ABC — other people have barred Twitter too”.
The unlikely duo then swapped notes on the irony of their predicament, with Hadley claiming he has been attacked from the right for his outspoken support of Covid-19 vaccines.
“I’m now accused of being too left and woke now that Channel Nine own me and the shock jock has become a softy. And you’re accused of being too close to the Liberal Party,” Hadley says he told Sales.
She wryly replied: “It’s a strange world.”
Strange indeed. Later, Hadley told his 2GB audience: “I’m getting attacked left, right and centre for being too woke now that Channel Nine own me … (But) the old shock jock hasn’t softened. I’ve just had a gutful of you dickheads on Facebook and Twitter, that’s what I’ve had. I’ve had a complete gutful of it. Get a life!”
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TV make-up artists on Covid frontline
Normally, TV hair and make-up artists are more than happy to be off camera and well away from headlines.
But over the last week or so, they have been reluctantly dragged into the centre of the story, after your diarist’s revelation the stars of Seven’s Sunrise, including David Koch, Nat Barr and Edwina Bartholomew, refused to have their noses powdered by anyone still choosing to be unvaccinated.
Now the make-up industry issues have extended to Ten as well. Diary is told two of Ten’s make-up artists working on morning show Studio 10 have been forced into isolation in recent days.
The problem was the barista at the Ten cafe tested positive to Covid-19, and the make-up artists had bought a coffee off him while he was infectious. As a result, Studio 10 has been forced to operate with a skeleton make-up crew.
Diary is told they are now more closely resembling something out of a Covid-19 hospital ward than a regular make-up crew. We hear all make-up artists at Ten are now wearing full PPE equipment, with plastic face shields, masks and latex gloves to protect the network’s key talent, after Sarah Harris’ Studio 10 co-host Tristan McManus was also forced into 14 days isolation following a separate close encounter with the barista.
So far, both the isolated make-up crew, who are double vaxxed, and McManus have tested negative. But it does illustrate make-up artists are on the very frontline of television’s war with Covid-19.
Meanwhile, following the Sunrise make-up uprising, pressure is amping up on holdouts against vaccination in TV. An all-staff study obtained by Diary shows three-quarters of Ten employees say they want “mandatory Covid-19 vaccination”.
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NRL deal nears – but is Ten the wild card?
Word has snuck out of rugby league-land that an agreement may not be far away on a new free-to-air deal between Nine and the NRL.
Diary is informed Nine is hoping it may be possible to ink a five-year deal as early as NRL grand final day, which would allow it to showcase a new contract in time for the October 3 showpiece.
But getting that deal done in a fortnight may be cutting it fine. The NRL is still holding out to win an uplift on the Covid-affected $100m a year Nine is currently paying for the rights to three weekly Thursday, Friday and Sunday games, plus Saturday games in the last month of the regular season, all finals games (including the grand final) and its jewel in the crown, the State of Origin series.
Currently, the NRL receives two-thirds of its total broadcast revenue from Foxtel, which last year extended its pay-TV deal until the 2027 season. NRL boss Peter V’landys is said to want the organisation’s free-to-air deal to be paid up to the same year.
One wildcard in the talks is the reputed interest not of Nine’s arch rival Seven Network, but of the US ViacomCBS-owned Ten Network in stealing the rights.
Nine remains the hot favourite, with V’landys said to value the network’s loyalty to the game along with Foxtel through difficult times in the past two seasons.
However, he wants Nine to pony up. And Ten is making a quiet backroom play with the NRL because it has no mainstream sport.
Ten privately claims it would like to bring technological innovation CBS has showcased in its coverage of the NFL in the US to remake the broadcasting of rugby league in Australia.
A Ten insider confirmed to Diary: “We’re interested”, before quickly adding: “but we’re waiting for the NRL’s engagement.”
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Morgan heads for Sky after dark
An international flavour will be added to Sky News’s night-time line up, after last week’s recruitment of former Good Morning Britain host and noted Meghan Markle adversary, Piers Morgan.
Under the global deal struck with News Corporation – which owns this paper – Morgan’s new show will be the focal point of the launch by News’ UK subsidiary of a new national TV station called talkTV.
It’s early days, with many details still to be ironed out, but Diary is told the new show has the working title Wake Up. That, of course, also just happens to be the name of Morgan’s latest book.
However, his show will run at night in the UK, US and Australia to attract the most eyeballs. His exact timeslot in Australia is yet to be decided, but the time difference between the UK and Australia will likely give Sky time to re-cut each edition of the UK-based show with more Australian content for the local night-time edition here.
Morgan is said to be keen to customise the show’s content to all markets in which it screens.
For viewers in Australia, one way that could happen is through local interviews inserted into the Australian version of the show.
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Dan TV sings from Gladys songsheet
Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery. And these days, some announcements at Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’s daily “Dan TV” press conferences are beginning to sound awfully like those of his NSW counterpart Gladys Berejiklian in her 11am briefings.
Where once he lashed out at Berejiklian for abandoning “Covid zero”, Andrews has belatedly embraced her “living with Covid” mantra.
Andrews has repeatedly said during the recent Delta outbreaks that he is “not here to talk about NSW” – but these days, it seems at least he’s happy to appropriate some of its policies.
On Thursday, Andrews announced his move to reinstate picnics for groups of five fully vaccinated people.
Sound familiar? That’s right, Berejiklian had announced a near-identical policy three weeks or so earlier — and back then, Dan had been quite scathing about the NSW Premier’s picnic penchant. “The national plan is about all of us moving together — not a national plan for picnics, just quietly.”
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