By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
For Joe Aston, the former Rear Window columnist with our sister paper the Australian Financial Review, the last month has been quite the victory lap.
Aston’s book on Qantas launched in late October, and its claims that Anthony Albanese had lobbied the airline’s former boss Alan Joyce for flight upgrades (which the prime minister’s office took six days to deny) dominated the news cycle for a week – and led to a flurry of MPs quitting the Chairman’s Lounge.
Since then, Aston has been hitting the podcast and lecture circuit with gusto, because why wouldn’t he? It was during the latest tour stop – a stage show with former 7.30 host Leigh Sales at Sydney’s City Recital Hall – that Aston revealed he would be publishing a new newsletter on his own website, joeaston.com.au, from next year.
We can’t wait. And we’re not alone – the site includes a waiting list for eager readers looking for new content. There’s an option to book Joe for a speaking engagement, if that’s more your thing. More intriguing is the website’s domain owner – none other than Claire Kimball, the Tony Abbott press secretary-turned-Woolworths spinner who’s the brains behind The Squiz, a daily news email and podcast.
Has Aston gone from the heights of the Fin to a new media upstart? He was on a flight when we called (probably Qantas), but Kimball told us that while Joe’s venture wasn’t part of the Squiz empire, they were “excited to play a supporting role”.
Pic’d off
James Brown has been preselected to run for the Liberals in Mackellar.
James Brown, a former RSL NSW president and serial Liberal Party preselection hopeful, got the nod to run against teal independent Sophie Scamps in Mackellar this year, to little surprise.
Ever since Brown, who was previously married to Malcolm Turnbull’s daughter Daisy Turnbull, bought Wentworth MP Allegra Spender’s old holiday home on Great Mackerel Beach in Pittwater, it’s been an open secret that he’s had his eye on running.
More surprising is some of Brown’s recent social media shuffling. A post from October, of Brown posing with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and conservative Liberal personality Teena McQueen, has mysteriously vanished from Brown’s Instagram.
The trio had met at a Liberal event on the Central Coast to discuss the party’s nuclear policy. More recently, former Liberal vice president McQueen was seen partying at Mar-a-Lago along with Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, after Donald Trump won the US presidential election.
When Alan Jones was charged with indecent assault offences, McQueen sprung to action in a Liberal WhatsApp group to declare the case against the broadcaster was “absolute bullshit”.
All this baggage made CBD rather suspicious about the photo’s disappearance. Was Brown worried that a happy snap with McQueen might play badly with the good burghers of the northern beaches, who’d unceremoniously dumped the Liberals in 2022 over the party’s perceived inaction on climate change and general bad vibes?
Not so, said Brown, who told us he’d been sharpening up his social media and removing photos where he didn’t look the part.
“I was 12 kilos heavier and looked like an unmade bed,” he told CBD.
Move on up
It is a big CBD shout-out to ABC Canberra newsreader James Glenday.
We are tipping the big guy to replace ABC News Breakfast host Michael Rowland, who announced on Monday he is stepping away from the breakfast sofa after 14 years.
ABC newsreader James Glenday could be set for a permanent spot on the breakfast couch. Credit: Instagram
Rowland’s departure was long mooted after his cohost Lisa Millar upped sticks a few months ago and presented factual program Muster Dogs. And this column was indebted to ABC chairman Kim Williams for showering Millar with praise and pre-announcing that she would take over as host of rural doco series Back Roads – months before the ABC publicity department wanted to make the announcement.
Glenday, a frequent ABC News Breakfast fill-in host this year, is a presenter without a portfolio as he is finishing up on his ABC Canberra gig for an as yet unannounced new role.
This column previously tipped ABC journalist Linton Besser for Media Watch before he was announced as its new host.
Now we hear our November tip that former Nine Entertainment chief executive Hugh Marks is firming to replace David Anderson in the ABC managing director’s hot-seat. So we’re hoping for an ABC hat-trick before the year is out.