NewsBite

Anthony Albanese's friend Shaq copies the PM's diet and lifestyle choices

All the news that's fit to mint.

Jenna ClarkeEditorial Director
7 min read
11:25AMDecember 27, 2022.
Updated 12:02AMDecember 28, 2022
The Oz

All the news that's fit to mint.

What's happening in (The) Oz:

🐷 Two-legged pigs cause chaos on a popular Sydney beach 

🏏 David Warner's perfect, record-breaking clap back to his detractors

🌭 The Voice's unofficial ambassador Shaq O'Neill has gone full 'Albo'

🚹 NSW Liberals have hatched a plan to replace men

🥵 South Australia goes 'code red'

🚒 Tassie is on fire

📈 Mariah Carey defeats Christmas and Adele 

Welcome to, what I believe, is Wednesday

The Prime Minister is back at work.

However, he was mainly busying himself predicting the future.

Correctly, it seems.

Anthony Albanese attended the cricket at the MCG on Tuesday.

And despite having more costume changes than a Kardashian on tour.

Albanese called it early that David Warner would achieve his most storied ton.

And Warner bloody did it.

Twice.

Warner - the kid raised in a housing commission - has become just the 10th player in history to score a century in his 100th Test match.

The Aussie opener followed Australia’s all-time leading run-scorer, Ricky Ponting, as the only other Australian player to achieve the feat.

Back in 2006, Ponting scored twin centuries during the New Years Test in Sydney - also against South Africa.

There have been calls for Warner, 36, to retire as he hadn’t scored a century for more than two years, and had yet to reach 50 this summer.

He then did it again. Scoring two centuries in his 100th Test - the 25th of his illustrious career - before retiring absolutely cooked and after his thumb copped a ball that was bowled at 154km/h.

"When he limped from the MCG half way through the final session of day two, retired not out, beyond exhaustion, soaked in sweat, legs cramping, face grimacing, close to tears, with a massive 200 runs beside his name, having ground the wilting South African bowlers in to a directionless mess in baking Melbourne heat, Warner’s fight was well and truly won," The Australian reported.

"He ended the day in the bowels of the stadium covered in ice packs, receiving medical treatment having given all he could to register his third highest score in Tests, the second-highest by any player in their 100th Test, and put Australia on course for a series-sealing win."

His wife, Candice Warner who was in the crowd and has been her husband's strongest and staunchest supporters, summed up the mood best:

“It hasn’t been an easy summer with the bat, also behind the scenes he hasn’t really received a hell of a lot of support where it’s needed," she told Channel 7.

“He’s very thankful for his teammates, his coaching staff and friends and family who are all here today. But it hasn’t been easy and if it comes down to the captaincy stuff if we’re talking about that, it’s been dragged on and it shouldn’t have.

“This is going to mean a lot. To do it in front of everyone who means the most to him is even more special.

“He said he was doing it for the little David Warner who grew up in the housing commission and no one would have thought he would make it. There were so many doubters along the way.”

Less than impressive scenes in Sydney 

The Waverley council in Sydney's plush eastern suburbs is disgusted in beachgoers who trashed Bronte Beach on Christmas Day.

Messy celebrations at the popular Sydney beach caused outrage among locals and now the mayor is threatening new measures to restrict bad behaviour. 

Bronte Beach was left covered in rubbish after hundreds of people flocked there for Christmas Day celebrations, infuriating local residents.

Waverley Council Mayor Paula Masselos is not happy.

She said on Tuesday that a number of preventive measures are now being considered, including a larger police presence.

“There are a number of options … which would possibly look at extra police and extra rangers, but all of this actually costs quite a bit of additional money, so we need to think it through very carefully,” she said.

Another measure under consideration is limiting the amount of people allowed to gather in groups at the beach – similar to restrictions in place in the middle of the pandemic.

Gross grubs, consider yourself warned.

NSW Liberals replace men with women ahead of the election

Politics never sleeps. Especially when there's a state election looming in our most populous state in about three months time.

There were extraordinary scenes inside NSW Liberal party ranks on Tuesday when a motion to add three women to the upper house ballot paper passed with the blessing and backing of NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet.

This will, allegedly, end a long-running factional battle over preselections - internal elections that happen to choose candidates who run for public office at general elections (the ones us plebs vote in).

The changes mean that in order to add more women to the ticket, it'll mean a number of sitting male MPs will be dumped.

The whole shebang has been summed up by a pollie as a “perverse factional stitch-up”.

"Upper house president Matthew Mason-Cox, who will lose his ticket spot if the latest ballot is successful, accused powerbrokers of attempting to ram through a deal over the Christmas holidays to avoid a proper vote by the party’s members. Mr Mason-Cox said installing Sydney based women to represent voters in the country was insulting and disrespectful to the party’s membership," The Australian reported.

“It is the worst kind of political patronage and undermines the key rationale for introducing provinces in the first place, that is, to broaden representation to members outside the city,” Mason-Cox said in an email on Tuesday.

“It also cynically dispenses with merit selection under our Constitution thereby sending a terrible message to all the talented women already in our party and to those who might otherwise join.” 

So why is everyone confused and miffed?

There has been lots of hand-wringing and internal fighting about pre-selections and the party having to deal with its "women's problem", perceived or otherwise, given the wipe out the Libs have endured at other recent state and federal elections.

"The move to install more women had caused considerable anger within parts of the Right faction over what was seen as a power play by the conservative Premier and his moderate Treasurer, Matt Kean," The Australian reported.

"The state executive on Tuesday gave party members about three and half hours to vote on the new ticket and gave a deadline of 7pm just two-days after Christmas. "

Meanwhile, SA is hot

South Australia is heading into its first heat wave of the summer.

Adelaide was forecast to reach 40 degrees on Tuesday.

The state's 'Code Red' protocol was activated from 9am Tuesday and for the entire state to support rough sleepers until 9am on December 29.

Under Code Red, homelessness services will visit known rough sleeper locations to provide support and reduce the impact of extreme weather.

South Australian State Emergency Services are urging all residents to keep cool, drink water and to never leave children unattended in cars.

And parts of Tassie are on fire

Our coolest state is dealing with bushfires.

An "uncontrollable" bushfire was putting locals on the west coast of the Apple Isle at risk on Tuesday.

Residents of Rosebery, 300km northwest of Hobart, and surrounding areas have been told to prepare to leave as a blaze continues to burn.

TFS crews are attending and expect conditions to improve, but the Service has warned ash and embers may threaten local homes. 

Meanwhile Princess Mary is still in town.

She was spotted at the NBL, supporting the Tasmania JackJumpers on Tuesday night where the local team beat the NZ Breakers.

Shaquille O’Neal has gone 'full Albo'

DJ, NBA icon and The Voice's most obscure supporter is disappearing.

Literally.

Shaq has shredded for (our) summer and revealed he has lost about 20kg from his 7-foot tall (2m) frame by switching up his diet and lifestyle.

“A friend of mine called me and said, ‘You’re fat,’ and she gave me this guy’s name, and he did some blood work,” Shaq said.

“He was saying, ‘You can do this, you can’t do that, [eat] more vegetables, [your] iron’s low.’

“Once I just started changing those certain things, it dropped,” the 50-year-old continued. “It’s all about eating right.”

His physical make over follows this meeting:

@auspol_clips

PM Albo meets with NBA star Shaquille O’Neal to promote his proposed indigenous voice to parliament. #auspol #politics #australia #australian #government #primeminister #albo #albanese #labor #alp #anthonyalbanese #parliament #shaq #shaquilleoneal #nba

♬ original sound - Australian Politics Clips

O’Neal noted that he wasn’t “a salad eater” before but now takes supplements and avoids cool drinks.

He said once he started making the changes the weight "just fell off" and has plans to lose more. 

"I need to lose about 20 [10kg] more, but impressive. I'm a get real chiseled up and do an underwear ad with my sons."

O'Neal is giving himself till his 51st birthday in March to reach the goal.

"Shirt off. Chiseled," he promised.

@shaq

I just want to have a good night

♬ original sound - ShaqDieselONeal

A coincidence or inspiration after meeting another make up man in Albanese?

The PM also lost about 20kg in the lead up to the 2022 election following a car accident. 

Mariah was the only person to have a good 2022

It checks out.

Not only did she score (another) resurgence on the charts and in popularity when Latto used her Fantasy ditty for Big Energy - which reached #3 on the US Billboard Hot 100. She also would have pocketed another huge royalties cheque.

That's in addition to her annual $3 million pay day thanks to All I Want For Christmas Is You holiday anthem which has broken more records this week.

The song s also clocked up the most single-day streams on Spotify’s global chart, having received 21.273 million streams this Christmas Eve.

It's a record Carey has broken record four times now.

This year her '90s bop bumped Adele’s Easy on Me to second place with 19.747 million single-day streams.

However the genesis of the song is once again under a cloud.

While appearing on the Hot Takes & Deep Dives podcast, Carey's former collaborator Walter Afanasieff said that Carey, a chart-topping, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter had far less of a hand in writing the song.

He also claimed Carey "doesn't understand music," and that the two came up with All I Want For Christmas is You together. Carey hasn't responded to the new claims but she has always said she wrote the song while playing her keyboard as a kid.

Read related topics:Anthony Albanese
More related stories

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/the-oz/news/anthony-albaneses-friend-shaq-has-now-copied-the-pms-diet-and-lifestyles-choices/news-story/5297bb63be6b06945619cfd35ae3d552