ICAC hearing into ALP donation scandal draws mystery guest into media room

Amelia Brock from Essential Media.

Strewth presents … The Curious Case of the Mystery Woman in the ICAC Media Room. While the front pages are dominated by the Aldi bag of $100,000 in cash (which we estimate to be an underwhelming 10cm stack of $100 bills) allegedly given to the boss of the NSW Labor Party’s head office by Chinese property developer Huang Xiangmo, behind the scenes it’s a spin-eat-spin world.

Before Monday’s hearing into Operation Aero kicked off, journalists spotted an unknown woman sitting in the media room. Adjacent to the courtroom, the side room is where journalists watch proceedings while exchanging intelligence and banter about what angle to run.

When The Australian Financial Review’s national affairs correspondent, Angus Grigg, introduced himself and asked where the mystery woman worked, she replied: Essential Media. That’s right, the lobby group on the payroll of NSW Labor. It turns out the woman was Amelia Brock, Essential’s senior communication consultant, who, according to her work profile, has a “passion for progressive politics and driving social change”.

Safe to say, members of the actual media were nonplussed. When Grigg and Nine’s investigative journo Kate McClymont informed the PR rep from the Independent Commission Against Corruption that Brock wasn’t one of us, she was booted from the room. But that didn’t stop speculation about what she was doing there, especially as Essential boss Peter Lewis was spotted riding shotgun for Labor in the courtroom. When Strewth called Essential, we were told by a receptionist it was “basically a misunderstanding”.

When we asked if Brock was there to spy, we were emailed this: “One of our consultants was present at the opening day of the ICAC inquiry to provide support to a client. She was initially informed by commission staff that it was appropriate to attend the media briefing and work in the media room. She was subsequently informed that the room was for ‘working media’ only and not consultants at which point she left the room.”

ICAC’s take? No comment.

Laboring jobs

Now that Jeremy Corbyn fan Paul Erickson has replaced Noah Carroll as Labor’s national secretary, it seems more change is in the air.

Strewth understands assistant national secretary Sebastian Zwalf has outstayed his welcome and the Right faction wants him gone by year’s end. Why?

“He’s not very good,” a senior Labor source says. “People are not going to push him out the door but everyone wants him to go.”

Two names are being floated to replace him: Jon Persley, a former Queensland assistant secretary and Bill Shorten adviser, and Jessie McCrone, a former state field director and deputy chief of staff to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. Persley is considered the frontrunner, despite failing to pick up key Queensland seats for Shorten in May. Hailing from Victoria might be a problem for McCrone, but sources say she’ll get strong support if she wants the job.

Quiet PM

News from the continent: they had no clue who our Prime Minister was at the G7 in France. “What’s your bloke look like again?” Fleet Street photographers asked Sunday Telegraph political editor Annika Smethurst before Scott Morrison arrived for his sit-down with Britain’s Boris Johnson.

Smethurst tweeted a snap of them Googling photos of our quiet leader, who later justified himself to journos: “This is a long way from the Shire.” But it’s not only the PM causing confusion. Nine newspapers’ outgoing Canberra bureau chief, Bevan Shields, tweeted yesterday that a Parliament House tour guide had a tough time getting an answer from schoolchildren about who the Deputy Prime Minister was. “Tony Abbott?” one kid ventured. Devastating news for Michael McCormack, who was also savaged as “bland” by Troy Bramston in this paper yesterday. Bramston’s column was “liked” on Twitter by former NSW Nationals leader Troy Grant.

Making capital

Another question it seems people can’t answer: “What is Canberra?”

Comedian and troublemaker Dan Ilic posed that excellent philosophical query to tourists at Sydney’s Bondi Beach and filmed their responses. A moustached man wearing an army-print bandana guessed: “Some kind of fruit? If it’s a fruit it’s going to be red, it’s going to be sweet, a little sour. Maybe a berry type. Can-berry-a?”

An American woman told Ilic confidentially: “It’s a rodent. I’m determined that it’s a big rat.” Another US pair thought it could be a lizard, a beach or a camera. None guessed correctly. Ilic released the video to promote his live comedy-news podcast A Rational Fear’s Mid-Winter Bore, coming to our nation’s capital on September 7.

[e-mail]