‘Witness protection’: Albo AWOL on Kimberley Kitching; why Andrew Probyn refused to name Penny Wong

Kimberley Kitching, left, and Penny Wong. Andrew Probyn tells Diary when he asked Kitching about a now famous Wong comment, Kitching did not give permission to use Wong’s name.

For the three years since he became Labor leader, it’s been hard to avoid Anthony Albanese on traditionally conservative talk radio stations.

The Labor leader quickly developed a reputation for being “Albo Everywhere” on the heavyweight Nine Radio stations like 2GB, 3AW and 4BC, making himself available to almost any show at any time they wanted him.

Albo even lectured his shadow ministry that they needed to embrace the conservative media to win over voters, deliberately distancing himself from the policy of his predecessor Bill Shorten to boycott outlets like 2GB and Sky while he was leader. “It’s a way for us to communicate, for us to get our ideas out,” Albo told his colleagues back in 2019.

But it’s amazing what claims that late Labor senator Kimberley Kitching was bullied by fellow female Labor senators seem to have done to Albanese’s talk radio embrace.

Suddenly, just about the last place Albo wants to appear is on the likes of 2GB and 3AW.

A frustrated 2GB breakfast host Ben Fordham belled the cat on Albanese’s sudden media shyness. “You were happy to play judge and jury when the Coalition was in the spotlight — now you’ve gone into witness protection,” Fordham addressed Albo on air at one point.

“Albo has again declined to appear on this show today. That’s the fourth time he’s knocked us back. We’re on a list apparently. There was no time to talk to us last week. No time on Monday. No time on Tuesday. No time on Wednesday.”

Anthony Albanese. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

Fordham dubbed it a “witness protection” scheme, and noted it seemed to extend to Albo’s deputy, Richard Marles, and one of the women of the moment in the Kitching story, Kristina Keneally.

But Albo had some odd media priorities last week. While he put Sydney’s top-rating breakfast radio show on a waiting list, Albo somehow found time for a critical interview with 4CA Cairns breakfast host Murray Jones – where all the focus seemed to be about Albo’s loyal dog, Toto. Jones opened with the killer question: “Anthony, tell me a little bit more about Toto.”

And Albo was only too happy to wax lyrical about the country’s potential First Dog. “Well, Toto is a very loyal little puppy. She‘s not really a puppy, but she still has the energy of a little pup, I’ve got to say. She’s 6 now. And I was doing a photo shoot yesterday and we walked down to my local park and she came down, never wastes the opportunity….” And on and on it went.

Albanese also found time for another soft interview on Triple M Newcastle about rugby league and property prices, and a cosy 36-minute studio chat with Kyle Sandilands, which concentrated on the meaty issues of smoking weed and whether Albo had ever done a shooey.

When Sandilands did eventually mention Kitching’s death, it was with a sympathetic take: “I just feel the media are trying to blame those three senators in the Labor Party, and I feel that’s screwed up a bit,” Sandilands said, to which Albo responded: “No-one has ever called me a mean boy.”

But several talk hosts apart from Fordham called out Albo’s apparent flight to soft radio interviews, including 2GB morning host Ray Hadley, who said it was now a “waste of time” for him to try and score a chat with the Labor leader: “Anthony, grow a set mate. Don’t present yourself for questions on how your dog Toto’s going.”

Diary hears some key advisers in the Labor camp are now hopeful this week’s budget and Shane Warne memorial will finally move the media cycle on from the Kitching/mean girls story. Time will tell if they’re right.

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Why Probyn didn’t name Penny Wong

It’s the 2019 comment to the late Kimberley Kitching at an ALP parliamentary meeting that has come back to haunt Labor Senate leader Penny Wong, three years on.

Labor senators had been debating whether to support a Greens senate motion to support schoolchildren engaging in “civil disobedience” at climate protests. Kitching reportedly opposed supporting the motion, seeing it as pointless “virtue signalling”.

Andrew Probyn. Picture: Kym Smith

That resulted in the now-famous reported Wong retort to Kitching: “Well, if you had children, you might understand why there is a climate emergency.”

The man who first broke the news of that exchange back in 2019 was the ABC’s political editor, Andrew Probyn, in an online piece for the ABC News website. But there was one key aspect of the exchange Probyn omitted from the original story: that it was Wong who made the comment. In the piece, Probyn simply identified her as “a senior member of the Left”.

So why didn’t he name Wong back then?

Probyn tells Diary when he asked Kitching about the Wong comment, Kitching did not give permission to use Wong’s name.

“Kimberley Kitching thought long and hard about whether she was going to let me use that anecdote,” Probyn says. “I wrote the story over a couple of days. She eventually said she’d let me use the anecdote, but not name Penny Wong. If she’d been happy for me to name Wong, I would have done so. But she decided that while she wanted it known what had been said at the meeting, she didn’t want to start World War III (by naming Wong).”

Probyn told Diary he was only confirming Wong’s identity because “ (news.com.au’s political editor) Samantha Maiden had named her in her book”, called Party Animals.

The ABC political editor has also noted in a fresh piece on the ABC News website that Kitching had “wanted it known what had been said to her” back in 2019, “in the hope it would encourage greater respect” in the party room.

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Twitter mania over Antony Green’s ‘Sunday’ call

There was fevered speculation last week when, out of the blue at 10pm on Wednesday, the ABC’s election guru, Antony Green, suddenly made a one-word post on Twitter: “Sunday”.

Green quickly went viral on the social media platform, with his succinct post interpreted by many crazed Twitterati as evidence Scott Morrison was firing the starting gun on the federal election campaign on the Sunday just passed. Green, after all, is well known to have a penchant for cryptic one-word tweets.

A frenzied game of late-night Chinese whispers ensued on Twitter, with numerous disciples of the ABC guru excitedly stating Green was “predicting when (Morrison will) call the election” and 7.30 satirist Mark Humphries even tweeting: “I am here for this.”

Antony Green.

But amid all the excitement, some of the Twitter faithful smelt a rat. As one of his 192,000 followers wrote: “OK Antony. You have to explain that. Did you accidentally tweet on your own profile instead of replying to someone else’s tweet somewhere?”

When we reached Green on Thursday, he admitted to hearing something of the social media storm he had unleashed. “I heard something this morning about it,” he confessed to Diary. “I just thought: ‘Twitter is ridiculous!’”

Green confirmed his short tweet was in response to a follower’s question about when he expected counting in the South Australian election to conclude. “I tweeted on my own profile instead of replying to the tweet asking me about the SA election,” he said. “Scott Morrison couldn’t have called the election on Sunday. Parliament has to pass a supply bill before any election can be called.” Parliament, of course, returns on Tuesday with the handing down of the budget.

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Budget bowled by Warne’s last wrong ’un

Breakfast TV’s snubbing of a trip to the national capital for the budget is now complete.

Diary has learnt that ahead of Shane Warne’s memorial service this week, all three major breakfast TV shows – Sunrise, Today and ABC News Breakfast – have definitively chosen cricket over Canberra.

We’re told there has even been a brief détente in the normally fierce rivalry between the breakfast shows, with some quiet back-channel conversations on private messaging apps to compare notes on how they will cover the budget.

These chats seemed to result in a clear consensus across the three shows: ditch Canberra. None of the six presenters at the breakfast shows: Michael Rowland and Lisa Millar of ABC News Breakfast, David Koch and Nat Barr of Sunrise, or Karl Stefanovic and Ally Langdon of Today, will base themselves in the national capital on the morning after the budget.

As we know, Stefanovic and Langdon both plan to appear on Today at the MCG on Wednesday morning to celebrate Warne.

Shane Warne. Picture: Getty Images

Natalie Barr.

Diary is also told the Sunrise hosting team will split so it can have a presence at the MCG, with Barr dashing back from the Oscars to broadcast from the venue on Wednesday while Koch continues to anchor from the show’s Sydney studios. But at this point, no one will go to Canberra.

Meanwhile, at ABC News Breakfast, Rowland and Millar will continue to host from Melbourne, with the show apparently taking the decision well before Warne’s death not to head to Canberra. It was apparently decided the exorbitant cost of a broadcast outside Parliament House was not justified, given politicians – fearful of protesters – most likely wouldn’t front for an in-person interview anyway.

Sunrise seems keenest on featuring the Budget, given its potential significance to the looming election. The whisper out of Seven is the breakfast show will most likely lead off on Josh Frydenberg’s speech on the Wednesday morning, given Warne’s funeral won’t take place until that night.

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Yvette D’Ath’s ‘Sir Humphrey’ moment

We’ve heard of the recyclable economy – but does that include governments recycling old news?

Queensland’s embattled Health Minister, Yvette D’Ath — clearly spooked by widening coverage on print and TV portraying an overrun health system in the state struggling to provide enough hospital beds – decided it was time to stem the bleeding with a positive announcement.

Moments before beginning a press conference in her home electorate of Redcliffe, D’Ath’s team of spinners cooked up a media release with the bold headline: “26 new hospital beds on Brisbane’s southside”. This was allegedly a new announcement of extra beds at the QEII hospital.

Only it turns out the “announcement’” wasn’t new at all.

Yvette D'Ath. Picture: Liam Kidston

Just 10 months earlier, on May 11, 2021, D’Ath had sent out a strikingly similar press release promoting – you guessed it – 26 new beds at the QEII hospital!

What ensued between D’Ath and some eagle-eyed reporters at the press conference minutes later was something out of the British comedy Yes Minister.

Tim Arvier (Nine): Are these the same 26 beds that were announced on the 11th of May2021 at QEII Hospital?

D’Ath: Umm, well when I say umm … it is new beds coming online … so we are announcing these beds are going to be open.

Samantha Heathwood (Seven): Are these (beds) in addition to that announcement?

D’Ath: No, this is the announcement of what I’m announcing …. these beds are opening in June, they’re on time.

With that level of gobbledygook, who’d bet against D’Ath giving Yes Minister’s Sir Humphrey Appleby a run for his money in her command of bureaucratese?

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The ‘robust debate’ at Nine editors’ party

It’s the whispered talk that has swept the corridors of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald in recent weeks: just how “spirited” did things get when prominent ex-Coalition staffer turned lobbyist David Miles dissected the media’s coverage of Covid with the papers’ editors, Gay Alcorn and Bevan Shields, at a private drinks gathering last month?

Adding spice to the chatter around Nine’s North Sydney and Docklands headquarters is Miles is the partner of the editor-in-chief of both papers, Tory Maguire. The high-powered pair hosted a party and barbecue at their inner-city pad after an off-site meeting that brought together some of the Nine papers’ most senior talent who had been kept apart for two years by Covid.

Under the most hyperbolic versions of the exchange, temperatures were said to have been raised by some unvarnished assessments of the media’s support of Covid mandates.

But was this a simple another case of Chinese whispers, with the corridor gossip exaggerating what really happened?

Tory Maguire Nine Executive Editor.

Parties to the conversation are adamant Miles was not critical of The Age or Sydney Morning Herald. They say it was simply a “spirited” and more general discussion about how the media should have covered Covid, although they acknowledge there was “some disagreement” around masks.

“It was not a tense, stand-offish or aggressive discussion,” a source said. “David wasn’t attacking the Age or the Herald. He just has a libertarian perspective on the media’s coverage of Covid, with Gay and Bevan defending the media in parts, and acknowledging the bits that weren’t good.”

When we reached Maguire on Friday, she said “robust debate” was always a feature of her parties. “Anyone who’s ever been to one of Dave and my parties knows enthusiastic bursts of robust debate are part of the show,” she told us. “That, and my superior BBQ skills, are why our parties are never dull.”

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Perrottet headhunts ex-Tele news boss

Big changes are afoot in Dominic Perrottet’s media division. Diary can reveal respected 30-year ex-News Corp editor Kathy Lipari has been drafted in as media director for the NSW premier.

The headhunting of Lipari means two former top women from Sydney’s most powerful paper, The Daily Telegraph, will head up Perrottet’s spin unit with a state election a year away.

Kathy Lipari.

Tellingly, Lipari and her new boss, Miranda Wood, Perrottet’s executive director of media, both served as the Telegraph’s head of news in recent years.

Lipari’s predecessor, ex-Seven reporter Mike Duffy, will work in a new role as Perrottet’s No. 2 in strategy, under the NSW premier’s boss in the area, Ben Riley.