By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
It seemed that everyone on one side of politics has been clamouring to hear from Jordan Peterson, the reactionary Canadian psychologist best known for apocalyptic ramblings about the death of Western civilisation and life advice for teenage boys who just can’t seem to get a girl. But alas, the big guy was a no-show at his own conference in Sydney on Tuesday.
Peterson’s Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, a conservative think tank which counts a number of past and present Coalition figures on its advisory board, held its annual conference at the International Convention Centre on Tuesday, with the star attraction forced to Zoom in after failing to get an Australian visa. What are the chances?
Jordan Peterson speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in 2023. Visa issues forced him to Zoom in this year.Credit: Hans van Leeuwen
CBD hears Peterson only applied for the required visa last Friday. It didn’t arrive, and since then, the doctor was called to deal with a family matter back in Canada. Guests were forced to hear from local favourites like Tony Abbott and Peter Costello instead.
Former prime minister John Howard, ex-deputy PM John Anderson, and frontbenchers Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Andrew Hastie are all on the ARC’s advisory board. And given the strong antipodean flavour at the ARC’s maiden London event last year, Sydney was the natural choice for the sequel.
But Peterson’s late scratching didn’t deter a healthy crowd of conservative thought leaders, including former prime minister Abbott, his old chief of staff Peta Credlin, ex-deputy PM Barnaby Joyce, and former minister Keith Pitt and Matt Canavan.
And rebellious Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming was in the audience but her attention was divided. She was spotted by CBD’s spies absorbed in her phone, live-streaming the final submission in her defamation case against Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto still afoot back in Melbourne.
COOKIE CRUMBLES
“Uncalled-for and un-Australian.” That’s the assessment from some commentators about Senator Lidia Thorpe’s headline generating behaviour in front of King Charles at the Parliament House reception hosted by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his partner Jodie Haydon this week.
The official menu for King Charles’ parliamentary reception.Credit: @AndrewBGreene
But now a major uncalled-for and un-Australian error has been spotted on the menu for the reception for Charles III and Queen Camilla.
Amid the patriotic delights on offer such as the pumpkin Victorian Meredith feta and warrigal frittata, the Griffith salted Murray cod croquette and wattleseed lamington was a reference to an “Anzac cookie” in the sweet platter section of the menu
Oh dear. The Department of Veterans Affairs guidelines for use of the word “Anzac” run to 28 pages. It includes the Protection of Word “Anzac” Act 1920.
Guidelines state “the biscuits must not substantially deviate from the generally accepted recipe and shape, and must be referred to as ‘Anzac Biscuits’ or ‘Anzac Slice’ (not ‘Anzac Cookies’).”
The Department of Parliamentary Services responded saying the usual naming convention is ‘Anzac biscuits’.
“At the parliamentary reception however it did not happen due to an oversight when printing the menu. We meant no disrespect to the term Anzac and its significance within Australian culture.”
RUNDLE’S RUNNER
By the time media watchers were digesting the news that Crikey’s veteran correspondent-at-large Guy Rundle had been dumped after making one gross comment too many, the writer was already about to embark on his next adventure.
Anybody familiar with Rundle’s oeuvre would be unsurprised at the icky text message he sent into ABC’s Radio National Breakfast last week claiming that rising sexual assault complaints are because “every grope is now a sexual assault”.
What’s more surprising is that after years of tormenting editors with his overwritten prose, semi-regular offensive outbursts and general Hunter S. Thompson complex, Rundle was finally out. Despite all of the above, the subscribers love (and continue to love) him.
Perhaps those Rundle fans can rejoice because Guy the Gonzo is in the United States, where he was meant to cover the election for Crikey, until last week’s news. But while Rundle’s flights were already booked CBD hears Crikey’s parent company Private Media hadn’t contributed to any travel costs before their relationship with Rundle ended on Friday. And nobody at the publication has heard from him, or knows where he is. Rundle didn’t enlighten us either when we tried to reach him.
So all that’s left is to hold out for the inevitable Substack, where our Guy can pontificate away without pesky editors removing his obscure literary references and rogue racial essentialisms.
SUSSAN IN THE SKY
In 2017, Sussan Ley stood aside from then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s ministry in part over her prodigious use of taxpayer-funded flights.
But Ley, now deputy Liberal leader, no longer needs to bill the punters, because the NSW MP has just bought her own plane – a Cessna 182, according to her register of interests.
A spokesperson for Ley told CBD the MP had bought the plane after recently relicensing as a pilot, and that the Cessna was a reliable working bush aircraft, as well as her favourite.
“Her electorate of Farrer is 126,500 square kilometres, and one of the largest in the country. It is around the same size as Greece, Bangladesh or Nepal. She is using her plane to help to fly around her electorate at her own expense,” they said.
Ley first got her commercial pilot licence at 19, but failed to get a job with a major airline because of her gender. Some places are worse at this stuff than the Liberal Party.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.