With an election due in the next 12 months and with some in the government tipping it could come by the end of this year, depending on when the Reserve Bank cuts interest rates, there have been a few senior Labor staffers on the move.
CBD recently brought news of the high turnover rate in the offices of Home Affairs minister Clare O’Neil and Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones, while Anthony Albanese recently lost his long-time climate adviser Moksha Watts, and added veteran staffer David Epstein as his principal private secretary.
The PM also recently lost his governance director (no, we don’t know what that is either) Chris Owens, a veteran politico who worked for Kristina Keneally in opposition as well as former ministers Nicola Roxon and Kate Lundy in the last Labor government.
Owens recently wed his long-time partner Dan Holland (plenty of former Labor staffers were on hand, if Instagram is any guide) and apparently decided to call it a day soon afterwards and return to the private sector.
Chloe Bennett, who was deputy policy director in the PMO, has stepped in to take over a job that, apparently, nobody else wanted.
With an election looming, Anthony Albanese’s government is doing some reshuffling.Credit: Wayne Taylor
And it’s not just Jones, O’Neil and Albo shedding troops.
Health Minister Mark Butler lost Kate Grieve, a former COVID adviser to former Victorian health minister Martin Foley, in September last year after just a year and two months in the position.
He’s also lost policy adviser Genevieve Siddle, who moved over to the office of junior health minister Ged Kearney earlier this year.
We hear frustrations with Butler’s chief of staff Nick Martin played a part in both cases.
Martin is a former deputy national secretary of the ALP but is best known as the ex-husband of Sabina Husic, the hard-charging communications chief for former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, and sister of Industry Minister Ed Husic to boot.
Adding to the changes, Treasurer Jim Chalmers lost Amber Austin-Wright from his office back in January.
We’ll be keeping an eye on who else pulls the pin ahead of what is sure to be a gruelling election campaign.
UNION HUGS
Labor has long been criticised by haters for its cosy relationship with so-called “union thugs”. But it came in handy at the Victorian branch’s state conference over the weekend when the Moonee Valley Racecourse was crashed by pro-Palestine demonstrators.
About 200 protesters had attempted to block party members from entering. And hours later, dozens of them rushed past security, stormed the building, and started banging on conference room doors while party members were locked inside. Premier Jacinta Allan was hurried to the other side of the room.
But the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union jumped to the rescue. Muscly men in their union jumpers marched over to the doors to prevent an incursion.
“I’ve never been so happy to be in the same room as the CFMEU,” a Labor MP later joked.
Perhaps the union delegates should have been handed keys to the coffee machine too, with plenty of grumbles about the half-hour wait for a cuppa that morning.
As one party member’s jumper put it, “IN CFMEU WE TRUST.”
It’s worth mentioning though that CBD hears some of the CFMEU members backing Palestine questioned whether they really needed to barricade the doors shut.
After all, hours later, CFMEU members were loudly supporting motions supporting the Palestinian cause (and heckling those opposed). One of the motions – “end military cooperation with Israel” – was seconded by a CFMEU organiser.
LAST DRINKS
It isn’t just the twenty-somethings, and Albanese’s tenant, who are suffering at the whims of fickle landlords. This week, the Australian Monarchist League, that old bastion of stuffy boomerdom chaired by former Liberal Senator Eric Abetz, is being forced out of its Sydney offices after copping a rent increase.
Even Eric Abetz and the Australian Monarchist League are feeling the crunch.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
When we contacted the League’s veteran leader Philip Benwell on Sunday, he recounted an all too familiar tale of housing crisis woe. The League had only moved into the new space last year, and had put great effort into sprucing things up.
“We even put the NBN in!” an incredulous Benwell told CBD.
But determined to prove that constitutional monarchists know how to have a good time, the League is sending off the old space with a “Last Drinks Hurrah” on Thursday night.
It’ll cost you $15-a-head, another sign that even the monarchists are doing it tough.
RACE TAME
Sunday was not a day of rest and relaxation for activist and former Australian of the Year Grace Tame, who took out first place in the ultra-marathon (that’s 60 kilometres) at the Great Ocean Road Running Festival, clocking in at four hours and 43 minutes.
Also among the runners was Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, who opted for a more sedate half-marathon in just over two hours.
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