In Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Queensland, whenever there’s a morale-boosting Olympics or grand final announcement to be made, the Premier will be front and centre as the chief cheerleader, with press conferences, stunts and props all part of the razzle-dazzle.
But on the other side of the coin, when there’s bad news to announce in the Sunshine State you can bet that, like clockwork, Palaszczuk will do a vanishing act, as any minister, but the Premier is delegated to make the announcement and take the political hit.
That rule was proved unerringly accurate yet again last week.
First, there was the ever-worsening story of DNA bungling in Queensland, the scoop broken earlier this year by Diary’s colleague at The Australian, investigative journalism gun Hedley Thomas.
Last week, Palaszczuk’s government picked, of all days, Tuesday – the very day after the late Queen’s funeral – to sneak out a damning interim report by retired judge Walter Sofronoff about the state’s DNA debacle.
Alarmingly, Sofronoff, the former Queensland Solicitor-General and ex-Court of Appeal president, found that “systemic errors” by Brisbane’s main DNA lab had meant that the chance of conviction for thousands of serious crimes had, in many cases, been “forever lost”.
It was one of the most significant stories in Queensland this year. But where exactly was Palaszczuk?
Despite the Premier having made time earlier in the day to appear at a press conference on “climate energy policies”, she magically managed to make herself scarce by the time Sofronoff’s interim report on the DNA lab crisis was released later in the day.
It’s not as if Palaszczuk didn’t know the Sofronoff report was coming out, because the Premier’s Office had been sitting on it since September 15, five days before it was publicly released.
long-suffering Health Minister Yvette D’Ath – who has borne the brunt of releasing bad news during the state’s two-and-a-half years of health crises since the start of the pandemic – was thrown to the wolves yet again.
So reluctant was the Premier’s office to publicise Sofronoff’s damning findings, that they didn’t even put it on her now-famous political Facebook page, otherwise known as PNN, or the Palaszczuk News Network – which has a whopping 339,000 followers.
Instead, it was only posted to her much less-watched Twitter page, with no sign of it on PNN.
Interestingly, the very same tactic was used 24 hours earlier when the Premier was seemingly once more in full “pass the buck” mode with some further bad news.
Freedom of information documents produced by Brisbane’s Sunday Mail eight days ago had revealed that at least 20 Queenslanders had died either waiting for an ambulance, or waiting in an ambulance for a hospital bed.
Poor D’Ath yet again had to take the flak on the Sunday, but when the story went into a day two on Monday, there was still no sign of Palaszczuk.
It was left to Transport Minister Mark Bailey to stammer his way through machine-gun questioning by the Brisbane press gallery. Interestingly, once again, his briefing wasn’t posted to Palaszczuk’s Facebook page. So much for transparency.
A defensive Bailey eventually blamed the state’s hospital problems on the last LNP government in Queensland run by Campbell Newman.
Bailey will have to do better than that. It’s now coming up to the eighth anniversary of Newman’s defeat by – yes, Annastacia Palaszczuk – in the 2015 state election.
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Kerry O’Brien’s cruisey gig on tycoon’s ship
It has been dubbed the “Love Boat for billionaires”: Lindsay Fox’s no-expense-spared 85th birthday cruise up and down the east coast of America.
Now lucky attendees tell Diary that the trucking magnate’s takeover of a luxury cruise ship – together with 400 of his (generally very rich) nearest and dearest – also marked a rare hosting comeback for a very prominent ABC presenter.
Long-time 7.30 host Kerry O’Brien is a man we didn’t know was a buddy of the trucking tycoon. But there he was, the man nicknamed Red Kerry, in all his glory on the cruise – having a fine old time wining and dining among Fox’s ship full of billionaires, political leaders and sporting icons.
Little wonder that scoring an invite on Fox’s cruise was one of the most coveted tickets on the Melbourne social calendar. The trucking tycoon is understood to have forked out between $5m and $10m (or up to $25,000 per guest) on hiring out the Seabourn Quest – promoted on its website as an “ultra-luxury cruise ship” – for his all-expenses-paid extravaganza between New York and Montreal over the last fortnight or so.
But there’s no such thing as a free “ultra-luxury cruise”.
Even honoured guests had to sing for their supper on Lindsay’s love boat, and Red Kerry was no exception. The trucking tycoon called O’Brien out of his long retirement as a TV host, as – in full 7.30 mode – he moderated two high-powered “symposiums” for the big-name cruise guests.
One of the O’Brien symposiums was a full panel discussion on the subject of “democracy”.
And this was no ordinary chat, with the billionaire able to rustle up a world-class panel from among his cruise buddies, including a former federal treasurer in Joe Hockey, Barack Obama’s former US ambassador to Australia, Jeffrey Bleich, and a former federal Labor leader in Simon Crean. Not bad at all.
But that wasn’t the end of Red Kerry’s cruise gigs, with Fox also calling up O’Brien to front another in-depth symposium, this time on the Melbourne Cup, featuring caravan king and prominent horse owner Gerry Ryan, former VRC chair Amanda Elliott and ex-cricketer and horse fancier Simon O’Donnell.
O’Brien wasn’t the only prominent media personality hosting Fox’s symposiums, with Eddie McGuire apparently fronting a session on top-end booze – interviewing a panel featuring Elisabeth Jaubert, ambassador of one of France’s elite wine brands, Petrus, and the global face of top scotch brand Chivas, Peter Prentice.
McGuire also hosted a discussion about the future of the Olympics with IOC vice-president John Coates.
There was plenty of pressure to perform, even for media veterans such as O’Brien and McGuire, with the assembled cruise lovers including the likes of an ex-governor-general in Peter Cosgrove, multiple former state premiers, including Peter Beattie and Jeff Kennett, numerous former federal ministers, plenty of billionaires, including Solomon Lew and Fox himself, and almost as many AFL club presidents as there were in Melbourne during grand final week.
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Dutton in, Turnbull out for Four Corners story
It’s the story that has the Liberal Party on edge. As Anthony Albanese’s lengthy honeymoon period sees the new PM’s opinion poll standings at Bob Hawke-like levels, the ABC’s Four Corners has been hard at work for months on what insiders claim will be a “tough but fair” profile of the Liberals’ new-ish leader, Peter Dutton.
The episode, to be fronted by former Sydney Morning Herald political journalist Sean Nicholls, will screen on Monday night under the tagline: “Can the Liberals succeed under Peter Dutton?” (There was apparently a delay in the Four Corners episode’s screening date because of the Queen’s death.)
We’re told Dutton submitted to an interview late in the piece after lengthy negotiations. When Nicholls asks him: “Why have you decided to do this interview?”, Dutton replies: “Sometimes the public only see a snapshot of you.”
Diary is told that another item on the Four Corners wishlist for the Four Corners story was securing an interview with Malcolm Turnbull. There is, of course, plenty of history between Dutton and Turnbull, given the ex-home affairs minister’s leading role in Turnbull’s downfall as PM. Dutton’s initial leadership challenge to the ex-PM in August 2018 may not have been successful, but a second spill motion followed three days later, which paved the way for Turnbull to depart and Scott Morrison to ascend to leader.
Turnbull wrote in his 2020 autobiography A Bigger Picture that Dutton was “not a leader” and “lacks courage and conviction”. Diary is told that Turnbull ultimately didn’t make himself available to repeat those claims in a TV interview, despite whispers he was consulted on background.
However, another ex-Liberal PM, Tony Abbott, does front for an interview as a Dutton supporter, maintaining to Nicholls that Dutton “could very easily be our Prime Minister”.
To counter that, refugee advocates are interviewed to decry Dutton’s time as home affairs minister. There is also reputedly an examination of Dutton’s ability to confront the challenge of climate change candidates in traditional Liberal strongholds, particularly the rise of Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 200 movement.
Among those understood to have been interviewed for the Four Corners episode are some who have lost their seats at the hands of Climate 200 and Greens candidates, including Abbott, and the defeated members for the once-safe Liberal seats of Brisbane and Mackellar, Trevor Evans and Jason Falinski.
Falinski was beaten in the seat long held by Bronwyn Bishop by prominent Teal Sophie Scamps, while Evans was knocked off by Greens candidate Stephen Bates. Other prominent former prominent Coalition MPs interviewed for the episode is ex-Queensland state and federal minister Santo Santoro and the Member for Leichhardt Warren Entsch.
We hear some of the defeated Liberals were asked by Nicholls if Dutton could win.
The answers to that will likely generate headlines in coming days.
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FitzSimons lashes Royals as ‘truce’ ends
At the time of the Queen’s death earlier this month, Australia’s chief republican Peter FitzSimons showed unusual restraint by his standards: by electing not to immediately capitalise on her passing to renew his campaign for a Republic.
In calling a temporary truce during a two week mourning period for the Queen, FitzSimons praised her as being widely “respected” and “admired”, noting that during her reign, Australia had grown into a “mature” nation.
But what a difference a fortnight makes. As soon as Thursday’s day of mourning for the Queen’s passing was over, FitzSimons and the Australian Republic Movement that he chairs didn’t waste any time in launching a synchronised campaign, with separate statements that unleashed some much more forthright language against the monarchy.
“Rule by birthright, a literally born-to-rule English sovereign, has no place in a democratic, egalitarian Australia,” he told news.com.au on Friday, in comments also sent out to his 138,000 Twitter followers.
“The notion is as foreign to Australian values as the monarchy itself. Nor should anyone be forced to pledge allegiance to a foreign King or Head of State — our Head of State should pledge to serve us, and only us, instead. Only an Australian should have the honour of becoming our Head of State.”
We now have a King of Australia. Charles is not one of us and we did not choose him to be our Head of State. We hear you and agree the concept of an Australian King is both unsettling and foreign. Now is the time for us to think about our nation’s future. #AusPol#AusRepublicpic.twitter.com/sV62SFozIo
— Australian Republic Movement (@AusRepublic) September 22, 2022
Separately, FitzSimons’s Australian Republic Movement sent out a separate Twitter post – featuring a large photo of native outback lizard, the Thorny Devil – that appeared to mark the launch of a new campaign.
Under the slogan: “I am ready to make Australia a Republic”, the ARM posted: “We now have a King of Australia. Charles is not one of us and we did not choose to be our Head of State. We hear you and agree the concept of an Australian King is both unsettling and foreign. Now is the time for us to think about our nation‘s future.”
Despite those fighting words, new polling last week made it clear that the actual mood of the public isn’t yet matching the ARM’s rhetoric.
A Resolve poll in the Nine papers found that, amid all the blanket coverage of the Royal Family in recent weeks following the Queen’s death, there had been a significant fall in support for a republic. The poll showed that current support for a republic was currently at 46 per cent, compared with 54 per cent in January, while support for the monarchy was now in a clear majority at 54 per cent.
Whether this rise in support for the royals proves to be a temporary phenomenon or not, the Republican movement remains well short of the two-thirds majority it would need in any referendum to kick out the “born to rule” monarchy it opposes.
FitzSimons couldn’t be reached for comment on Sunday.
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Farage’s private Sydney dinner with Abbott
With the whirlwind Australian tour of Nigel Farage starting on Monday, there will be one low-key event for the Brexit movement leader that hasn’t been publicised.
Amid three ticketed events in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, and his appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference on the weekend, Diary hears Farage will on Friday night be guest of honour at an intimate dinner at a swanky Sydney eatery.
The dinner – to be hosted by Farage’s tour promoter Damian Costas – will feature several locals who’ve been prominent supporters of the British politician’s views, including ex-PM Tony Abbott, ex-2GB breakfast host Alan Jones, Sky Outsiders hosts Rowan Dean, Rita Panahi and James Morrow, Warren Mundine and former Liberal MP Ross Cameron. There is also expected to be an appearance by the chief spokesman of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign Jason Miller.
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Wayne Carey’s The Age column in firing line
He’s acknowledged to be among the AFL’s greatest players, but Wayne Carey’s post-footy career as a leading commentator on the sport is increasingly under siege.
The latest issue concerns his AFL column in The Age newspaper. Insiders at the Nine papers have told Diary that Carey’s weekly column – which runs every Friday – will almost certainly not be renewed in 2023.
His column hasn’t run for the last three weeks of the AFL season, including last Friday, after news of the alleged white powder incident at Perth’s Crown Casino. His most recent column for the Age was released on September 2 under the headline: “The great finals debate: Which player needs to fire for your team in September?”
When we reached the national editor-in-chief of the Nine papers, Tory Maguire, she wouldn’t comment on Carey’s status, only noting that in relation to its AFL coverage, the paper routinely reviews “all columnists at the end of the season”. The AFL season may have ended on Saturday, but Diary hears a review of Carey had already been under way before Saturday’s big game.
Carey has consistently maintained the white powder that fell out of his pocket in the casino incident “was not an illegal substance”, but rather an “anti-inflammatory” medication that he claims was “offered to security” at Crown in Perth.
Despite his explanation, other employers where Carey works as a highly regarded football analyst, including the Seven Network and Triple M, have already taken action in recent weeks.
Triple M has confirmed Carey will no longer be part of its commentary team. Seven has stood him down as a match day commentator pending investigation.
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