By Kishor Napier-Raman and Noel Towell
Luke Foley has kept a low profile since resigning as Labor leader in 2018 following harassment allegations made against him by an ABC journalist (which he’s always denied).
Aside from a bit of strategic advice work, including for Aqualand property guy Shangjin “Jin” Lin, we’ve not seen much of Foley.
But since Chris Minns led Labor back out of the wilderness in March, the former leader has appeared to make a quiet return to the fold.
Last Thursday, he showed up and got a shout-out at Minns’ Lachlan Macquarie lecture to the Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue, a forum founded by registered lobbyist and Balmain resident Christopher Brown.
A $290-a-head corporate luncheon crawling with ministers and lobbyists is no place for someone out of the politics game. Nor is Macquarie Street, where Foley’s been popping up a bit lately.
Notably, a coffee meeting with Housing and Water Minister Rose Jackson last week sent the rumour mill into overdrive about whether Foley was auditioning for one of those cushy appointments governments love giving their friends.
We hear it was all just a friendly catch-up between mates, and that Foley still has plenty of those in parliament.
PENNY FOR PALESTINE?
It looks like Labor lefties are getting uncharacteristically organised as they campaign for Australia to officially recognise Palestinian statehood.
Labor’s Victorian conference called on the weekend for the Albanese government to immediately recognise Palestine as a state, foreshadowing a similar move at the upcoming national gathering.
Recognition has actually been part of Labor’s official policy platform for a couple of years, but governments can blithely ignore those, especially when they’re politically tricky.
Amid all that, an appearance last week by former Labor foreign minister Gareth Evans could prove significant.
Gareth Evans and Penny Wong.Credit: John Shakespeare
The Bearded One made a speech to the gathering of the Parliamentary Friends of Palestine and caught up with his successor in the foreign affairs job, Penny Wong – the pair were spotted hugging – which made us wonder whether the hard word was being put on the Albanese government to get on and officially recognise Palestine.
Evans told us that Wong was “not opposed to implementing the platform, just a question of timing”.
Wong’s office wouldn’t comment on the private conversation, but directed us to the foreign minister’s public comments about how any decision on Palestinian statehood was a matter for the government, rather than Labor’s national conference.
SAUDI SARAH
Sarah Hill, one of Sydney’s most influential planning experts, has swapped the Harbour City for the dystopian desert deathscape of Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh.
The inaugural chief executive of the Greater Sydney Commission, who just finished up a stint running the Western Parkland City Authority, has taken a job with the Saudi Public Investment Fund, as an executive project director.
“I must say I am loving it!” Hill gushed on LinkedIn.
“Professionally I am leading on a major city making project, key to supporting a young, thriving population with great ambition and openly embracing change,” she said about her new job in a country where women still need a man’s permission to travel or get married.
Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is trying to soften the kingdom’s image in the West, where he’s best known for ordering bonesaw-wielding goons to murder a journalist. That’s meant spending a lot of the kingdom’s obscene oil wealth on buying football clubs and building futuristic modern cities, which all just makes him seem even more evil.
Hill isn’t the only Australian to be hired by the kingdom’s big image-laundering project. Phil Paris, an executive director at Development Barangaroo, recently left INSW for a role as chief development officer at Qiddiya, a Riyadh-based entertainment mega-project
The advisory board for NEOM, the crown prince’s vanity project for a linear green city, includes former NSW deputy premier Andrew Stoner and former Dow boss Andrew Liveris, chair of the Brisbane Olympics organising committee.
LEADING LADY
Tina Arena was never cut out to be a public servant. While Scott Morrison’s government gave the former PM’s favourite singer a spot on the Australia Council board, Arena was a regular no-show at meetings, attending just three out of six in the last financial year, and less than half in previous years.
Finally, Arena resigned from the board last month, with two years of an extended three-year term left to run, citing “work commitments” as the reason for her departure.
But one of those commitments appears to be doling out career advice to aspiring mandarins – the “Australian living legend” will deliver a keynote address at a Women in Public Sector Leadership Summit at Canberra’s horrible hotel realm next month.
The event, organised by an outfit called the Leadership Institute – which seems to specialise in such corporate self-help sessions for the R.M. Williams set – also features talks from actual senior public servants, and writers’ festival favourite Bri Lee, for some reason.
Given Arena’s attendance record, we’re not sure how many insights she’ll be able to provide on public sector leadership. But the topic of her address – “the importance of hard work, self-belief and knowing your worth,” sounds pretty inspirational.
Arena was contacted for comment.
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