ABC chair Kim Williams has been busy. Very busy.
Since ascending to the job last year, Williams has become the kind of bloke who’d talk to a brick wall, and his very serious thoughts have graced numerous writers’ festivals, annual orations, Friends of the ABC wine and cheese nights, and speeches at the National Press Club, the Melbourne Press Club, the State Library of Victoria, the General Sir John Monash Oration, the Lowy Institute Media Lecture, the DG8 Summit, and the pages of many a newspaper article.
Frequent flyer and man of the world: ABC chair Kim Williams.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
On top of that, he’s had to whip the public broadcaster into shape and press the flesh at its bureaux around the country.
All that moving and shaking comes with a hefty travel bill. According to documents released under freedom of information, taxpayers stumped up $55,087 for Williams’ travel expenses between last March, when he started the job, and May.
The bulk of that – $48,338.50 – came from airfares, while $6749 was spent on car travel.
“The ABC chair receives remuneration and expenses for their service on the ABC board, including allowances for travel,” a spokesperson for Aunty told us.
“Rates are set by the Remuneration Tribunal and are reviewed each year.”
Williams takes home a salary of a little over $200,000 – a rather modest return for a senior public servant. And his expenses, as far as we are aware, don’t include thousands spent on luxury car hire like his predecessor Ita Buttrose, who billed the public, including for trips to Beppi’s in Darlinghurst. Perhaps that might make a line in Buttrose’s new memoir, set to drop in October, which we are awaiting with bated breath.
Aunty’s new hire
A big CBD hello to Freya Campbell, who started last week as director of communications at the ABC. She replaces Nick Leys, who as this column first reported, left to work for Lord Mayor of Melbourne Nick Reece, where he joins another Aunty alumnus in Chaser funnyman-turned-speechwriter Andrew Hansen.
Campbell comes to Ultimo after a long media career that has taken her to all corners of the earth.
A job as assistant general manager of marketing and comms at Austrade meant Campbell was seconded in the office of then-Indonesian president Joko Widodo, advising the country on its “inaugural nation brand”. Whatever that means. Years before that, she had a stint in Abu Dhabi’s Department of Tourism and Culture as director of marketing, “positioning the emirate of Abu Dhabi in a global setting”.
All of this should make dealing with the national ranks of ABC watchers such as your good columnists a doddle. Somehow we doubt it.
In da house
Former senator Perin Davey.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
SPOTTED: Next week, it’s back to big school for Australia’s federal members and senators, with parliament sitting for the first time since Anthony Albanese’s crushing election victory in May.
And while the Coalition ranks are now greatly diminished, at least one departing MP is still hanging around. CBD’s spies spotted former Nationals senator for NSW Perin Davey, who lost her seat in the May massacre, at Aussies cafe in parliament this week.
She was briefly joined by her old Senate chum, shadow foreign affairs minister Michaelia Cash, from whom we’ve heard surprisingly little given the whole state of the world.
We wondered whether Davey had quickly landed a new job among the inmates of Parliament House. Turns out it was simply an opportunistic catch-up with Cashie.
As for what the former senator does next, Davey was an actor in a past-life, even appearing as an extra in The Matrix, so CBD is hoping she makes a return to the silver screen.
Fake tradie’s real job
In the frenzied hustle and bustle of a federal election campaign, there are often too many blunders, gaffes and scandals to keep track of.
But regular readers will surely recall with fondness the “fake tradie” debacle that popped up during Tim Wilson’s successful tilt to win back the federal seat of Goldstein from teal independent Zoe Daniel in April after she ousted him in 2022.
Tim Wilson’s campaign ad featuring the “fake tradie″.Credit:
This masthead reported how an online advertisement for the Liberal candidate featured a tradie or builder in a high-vis and hard hat ensemble who turned out to be Liberal campaign volunteer and local branch secretary Frazer Hurst. How very thespian.
CBD recently caught word that Hurst has been promoted to a paid position at the MP’s electorate office. But it’s not quite LinkedIn-official yet.
Naturally, we put in a call to Wilson’s office. And you can imagine our surprise when the MP personally phoned back. (Apparently, the ongoing search for staff has left him occasionally working the phones.)
Wilson initially didn’t want to comment, citing non-relevance. But shortly afterwards, we received a comment via text from Goldstein HQ.
“Mr Hurst was an outstanding volunteer during the campaign and that continued in the month after the election, so he was a logical fit when I was looking for staff, and he’s doing an outstanding job,” the statement read.
Sounds like a great hire, and we are hoping against hope that the high-vis and hard hat make a guest appearance around the corridors of power.
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