By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
CT Group, the political advisory firm kick-started by John Howard’s old necromancer Sir Lynton Crosby and credited with delivering a string of conservative electoral victories, has become a lot less interesting since its amicable separation with the Liberal Party last year, whose conservative wing are still incensed by the company’s work for the Yes campaign during the Voice referendum.
But CT again piqued our interest this week after Mohammed Syed, a former executive at the firm, pleaded guilty to stealing more than $180,000 from the business at the Downing Centre District Court on Tuesday. He’ll remain on bail, awaiting a sentencing hearing in October.
Mohammed Syed outside the Downing Centre on Thursday.Credit: Nikki Short
Syed made numerous unauthorised payments from the bank accounts of CT to his personal accounts over a six-year period from 2012, and pleaded guilty to stealing $20,000 to $30,000 each year, totalling $182,400, between 2012 and 2017.
In a statement, CT said the firm’s former financial controller had been brought to justice.
“Syed in court today pleaded guilty to a representative set of charges under a plea deal that he agreed with the DPP,” it said, adding the amount he stole was considerably higher.
“CT condemns Syed’s criminal conduct and will always act to defend what is right, the law and its own position.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
Progressive magazine The Monthly was planning a present of its own to celebrate The Australian’s 60th birthday: a profile of star libertarian columnist Janet Albrechtsen.
And why not? After decades of columnising, Albrechtsen still commands attention, and her opinionated dispatches from the front lines of the Bruce Lehrmann fiasco made headlines. Particularly after the ACT Supreme Court found Albrechtsen’s excessive contact – 273 phone interactions – with former Queensland judge Walter Sofronoff, KC, led to an apprehension of bias in Sofronoff’s inquiry.
The Australian’s star libertarian columnist Janet Albrechtsen.Credit: Edwina Pickles
CBD hears the magazine, founded by Morry Schwartz and edited by Michael Williams, dispatched ABC RN presenter Jonathan Green, who already had one Monthly cover story on the Murdoch empire under his belt, to put out feelers. Albrechtsen, plus conservative media figures Chris Kenny, Tom Switzer and others have been approached.
But now the whole thing has been iced. “We are letting it rest for now,” a mag source told CBD. No word on why, but a shame. If there’s one thing we want to read more than The Monthly’s profile of Albrechtsen, it would be an Albrechtsen column on The Monthly.
TWIGGED OFF
Whatever Western Australia lacks in proximity to the centre of political power, it more than makes up for in its sheer number of thin-skinned folksy billionaires, whose intemperate feuding even forces your east coast columnists to take notice.
The front page of The West Australian on Thursday.
Ever since mining magnate turned green energy evangelist Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest accused fellow rich-lister and Seven West Media overlord Kerry Stokes of abusing his media power after a quarrel over mining machinery, the duo have been engaging in an on-off sledging match.
Unfortunately, one of these men controls the state’s only daily newspaper, and it ain’t Twiggy. So when Forrest’s Fortescue revealed it would be slashing 700 jobs amid its pivot to green energy, The West Australian’s front page on Thursday featured Twiggy as Forrest Gump, under the headline “Forrest Dump”. Twiggy didn’t exactly help his case with injudicious comments comparing former Fortescue scientists who departed to start their own clean energy company to Nazi soldiers fleeing Poland after World War II.
On Thursday, Twiggy dialled into Perth radio station 6PR to tell presenter Gary Adshead that while he hadn’t seen the offending front page, he definitely wasn’t mad.
“They [The West] can knock their socks off, the people I know haven’t raised [the front page with me] because they don’t get The West … I had heard about it, I think it sounds funny.”
“If I ran this company according to what a shock jock had to say, mate, I would be, well Fortescue wouldn’t exist,” he continued.
So whatever happened between Twiggy and Stokes, Adshead wondered.
“I don’t know, mate. I think it got really antsy about us not going ahead with the power station in East Perth. I don’t know, look, I think good luck to him, he’s a good bloke,” the Twiggster said, before suggesting that Stokes and his media empire just weren’t happy about his whole Captain Planet schtick.
“I’ve been bagged every time I’ve gone harder on green. I’m going harder on green. I’ll continue to get bagged. Really, mate, it’s just tomorrow morning’s fish and chip wrappers, and I don’t mind.”
As for the Nazi comment?
“Look, it came into my mind that if you are retreating and then you’re ripping up the bridges and just destroying the place of your retreat, that came into my mind. Look Gary, I just call it as I see it,” he sputtered.
“I speak from the heart, mate.”
RATINGS FUNK
There was considerable angst at Sky News HQ on Monday when the channel came off-air hours before broadcasting its own celebratory project – The Australian: 60 Years of News.
“Third-party provider MediaHub, which manages the playout services for Sky News, suffered a hardware failure that impacted the Sky News channel,” a Sky News Australia spokeswoman said, adding it was all resolved in an hour.
“We apologise to our viewers for the inconvenience, with catch-up episodes to be made available to all subscribers.” Thank goodness.
Regular readers might recall that the original plan was to centre the program much more around the thoughts of chairman emeritus Rupert Murdoch, but Lachlan Murdoch didn’t like that idea and nixed it.
On Monday night viewers did not give Sky a ratings present, with just 25,000 viewers tuning in for the program across the five capital cities, compared to about 40,000 for The Bolt Report which preceded it, meaning almost half the audience switched off.
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