Strewth: Hiring Scott Cam was an ALP idea

Tanya Plibersek was quick to criticise the move, but hiring The Block’s host is a Labor idea.

Scott Cam speaking to media alongside Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business Michaelia Cash and Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: AAP

So, how much moolah is Scott’s mate Scotty getting? That was the question du jour after Scott Caminetti — better know as Scotty Cam, host of Nine’s reality renovation show The Block — was announced as “Australia’s first national careers ambassador” at a construction site press conference by Scott Morrison. Employment Minister Michaelia Cash (who is married to a barrister named Richard Price) wouldn’t divulge the dollar amount, saying the deal was “commercial in confidence”.

We couldn’t find any contracts in the government’s tender database under Cam’s name, his company or even the talent agency he uses. The details may not be finalised or maybe the Coalition has hired him as an employee — a political apprenticeship, perhaps? We won’t have to wait too long to find out, with Senate estimates kicking off on October 21.

But we’re surprised they’re paying him at all, given it sounds as if he already has been doing the job for free. Cam popped up in November 2016 alongside Karen Andrews, the assistant vocational education and skills minister at the time, in a YouTube clip and press release, where she describes him as “an active Australian apprenticeships ambassador in his free time”.

Piping Scott

Labor’s former deputy Tanya Plibersek was quick to criticise the Cam-eo, tweeting: “Scott Cam’s a good bloke, but if the Liberals were serious about fixing the skills crisis they’ve created, they’d stop hiring celebrities + start funding TAFE and apprentices”.

Scott Cam’s a good bloke, but if the Liberals were serious about fixing the skills crisis they’ve created, they’d stop hiring celebrities + start funding TAFE and apprentices. pic.twitter.com/bYmhuahsxM

— Tanya Plibersek (@tanya_plibersek) October 9, 2019

West Australian Labor senator Sue Lines also took to social media to complain to her old upper house colleague Doug Cameron: “apparently Scottie is helping the PM out. His job is to lift the number of apprenticeships and no this is not a joke!”

Scott off the press

We hate to break it to them, but hiring Cam is actually an idea Morrison borrowed from Labor; specifically, Kevin Rudd’s government (not an episode of ABC comedy Utopia, as some speculated). Strewth can reveal that Cam was paid $74,250 in taxpayer funds for a six-month Centrelink contract between December 7, 2009, and June 30, 2010, for “representational services”.

A Labor press release from March 24, 2010, says: “Parliamentary Secretary for Employment Jason Clare today announced that TV tradie Scott Cam will be on hand to help launch the ‘Keep Australia Working’ Centrelink Jobs Expo on Tuesday 30 March at Mingara (on NSW’s Central Coast) — from 10am to 3pm.” At the time, Clare was the junior to employment participation minister Mark Arbib.

The pair, plus then Labor MP for Dobell Craig Thomson, posed for a photo op with “Australia’s favourite tradie”. Arbib’s press release from March 30 says the free event was “one of more than 20 Keep Australia Working Job Expos the Rudd government is running in areas that have been hit hard by the Global Recession”.

Scott-blooded

“Was the fake tradie (actually a real tradie, metal worker Andrew MacRae, who went viral after a 2016 Liberal Party election campaign advertisement) not available?” one Liberal backbencher joked to Strewth. Morrison told the cameras Cam was “proof that undertaking a trade can be a very valuable, rewarding and successful career choice” (so rewarding he left it for a lucrative TV career).

Cash even called him a “proud tradie”. But let’s not forget the 56-year-old is an alumnus of prestigious Sydney private school Waverley College (along with former governor-general Peter Cosgrove and Gardening Australia’s Costa Georgiadis) as well as being a former apprentice, carpenter and Gold Logie winner.

Biblical might

After Strewth revealed the Greens’ plan to fly a “carbon neutral” hot air balloon above Parliament House, we received a few inquiries about the capital’s air rifle rules. While we in no way condone violence, it reminded us of this from @TheTweetofGod: “The Bible is 100% accurate. Especially when thrown at close range.”

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