By Noel Towell and Kishor Napier-Raman
First Chris Minns came for Dan Andrews’ fashion sense – CBD was alone in speaking out – when the freshly triumphant NSW Labor leader borrowed Andrews’ famous The North Face look for a victory stroll after the state election win in March.
Now the newish NSW premier is back for his Victorian Labor colleague’s sound bytes.
There was Minns on Twitter on Wednesday announcing a pay freeze for NSW politicians and the upper ranks of the state’s public service.
Chris Minns and Dan Andrews.Credit: John Shakespeare
And why would you do that, Chris?
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” the premier thundered to his followers.
Sound familiar? It will if you live in Victoria.
Here’s Andrews Twittering-on back in March about the 400,000 jobs he reckons his government has created.
“It was the right thing to do – for people, and the economy.”
Or this effort, on cutting country rail fares.
“Because it’s fair [geddit?] and the right thing to do.”
The bloke’s been at it for years. Here he is with a pre-election pledge way back in 2018 to put free menstrual pads and tampons in Victorian government schools.
“It’s an Australian first. It’s the right thing to do.”
In fairness to Minns, he’s not the only Labor leader in this country wearing Andrews’ influence on their sleeve. Peter Malinauskas in South Australia took a few leaves from Dan’s book for his big win early last year, and the Victorians had a big voice in the party’s post-mortem of Bill Shorten’s 2019 defeat which proved a key building block for Anthony Albanese’s breakthrough in May 2022.
We just wish the new NSW bloke would be a bit more subtle.
CITY OF GOD(LESS)
Remember former Australian Christian Lobby boss and CBD favourite Martyn Iles?
Iles, punted from the lobby’s top job for being more interested in preaching the gospel – he says – than working the corridors of power, will soon be ready with a big reveal of his next adventure.
In the meantime, he has been in contemplative mood as he quit Canberra, where the lobby HQ is, and shared his reflections recently with his many followers on the national capital’s “colder climate, the stark seasons, the lake ... the access to nature, the space”.
But then the Iles we know re-emerged with, well, a bit of a rant against his fellow Canberrans.
“Things I won’t miss – the wilful resistance to Christianity, and the profound spiritual deadness. Truly, a God-hating city,” Iles wrote.
“But as I said, He’s here ... All the time... whether they like it or not.”
You can take the man out of the Australian Christian Lobby …
WE’RE HIGH-ERING!
There aren’t many jobs where you’d admit on your application to a penchant for pot smoking.
But CBD’s attention has been drawn to a gig, paying more than a hundred grand a year, where a track record of pulling bongs is considered no impediment.
State parliament’s two Legalise Cannabis Party members David Ettershank and Rachel Payne are putting their backroom team together – they’ve already hired three staffers – and are looking for a parliamentary adviser for strategy and communications (on a salary of $102,000 plus super) to complete the team.
Ettershank told us that the party was “all about performance”, noting the “huge amount of discrimination” against workers taking medicinal cannabis but subject to random drug testing by their employers.
“We wouldn’t be saying to our people that you can or can’t smoke or consume cannabis, it’s all about being able to do the job on the day and be able to do that in a professional manner,” the member for Western Metro said.
But just-say-no diehards should probably save themselves the bother of dusting off the resume.
“It would be a difficult position to take if you were opposed in principle to the consumption of cannabis,” Ettershank said.
STRATEGIC SCOTT
Former PM Scott Morrison is hoping to further strengthen his credentials as a virtuous globalisation master, recently becoming an honorary member of the Centre for a New American Security’s strategic advisory board.
Sounds like a parody of the Washington DC military industrial complex, but CNAS is indeed a real think tank – based a stone’s throw from the White House, founded by Joe Biden’s “Asia czar” Kurt Campbell, bankrolled of course by weapons companies like Northrop Grumman and the US military, and featuring James Murdoch on its board of directors.
In his post-prime ministerial pivot to Mr Worldwide, Morrison has become a member of other khaki-tinged foreign think tanks, notably the Hudson Institute and International Democrat Union, both more openly conservative outfits than the relatively bipartisan CNAS.
A spokesperson for the former PM told us Morrison was “pleased to be working with CNAS to provide a unique Australian and Indo-Pacific insight into global security issues”, noting the think tank’s support for the AUKUS pact.
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