By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
Social media celebrity and fighter for the rights of renters everywhere, Jordan van den Lamb is coming for federal parliament.
The activist known variously as purplepingers and for his shitrentals.org website where renters post unflattering reviews of landlords and crummy rental properties, will attempt to translate his social media following into votes.
Jordan van den LambCredit: AAP
Does 200,000 TikTok followers translate into a Senate seat? Time will tell. Van den Lamb, 28, is a lawyer and federal public servant who lives in Melbourne and vows to take on the “aspirational ruling class”.
His campaign literature states: “He also makes silly little videos on TikTok and uses his platform to passionately contribute to political discourse (and Married at First Sight — equally important).” Sounds peak CBD to us.
“The landlords in parliament aren’t doing anything about the issues that are affecting regular people,” van den Lamb told CBD. “I don’t want to do this, but there is a lack of will within the major parties to do anything.
“People are angry and faced with a massive power imbalance.”
Greens housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
He will stand for the Victorian Socialists and describes his style as “dry and not beating around the bush”.
He will be in direct competition with The Greens and federal parliament’s current best known renter, the Labor MP-vanquishing member for Griffith Max Chandler-Mather. But he only has 68,000 Instagram followers to van den Lamb’s 68,300. JVDL damned The Greens with faint praise, telling CBD: “I like their policies. I don’t think they go far enough. My party has a policy that we don’t preselect landlords.”
Which absolutely cannot be said of some other Greens, including deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi and Tasmania Senator Nick McKim, who each own multiple properties.
‘LAMBO GUY’ MAKES A HOUSE VISIT
Billionaire Adrian Portelli has turned the tables on a man who allegedly broke into his $39 million penthouse to film his luxury supercar collection – by showing up at the man’s home and knocking on his front door.
Young Rich Lister and founder of LMCT+ Adrian Portelli.Credit: Kristoffer Paulsen
Portelli, 35, who is worth more than $1 billion, has waged a relentless social media campaign against the alleged intruders after using his social media prowess to first name and shame the alleged perps and now visit one of them at home.
“We are at the front of one of the guys’ houses that broke into the penthouse,” Portelli, known in Melbourne as “the Lambo Guy” for his love of supercars, posted on an Instagram story about 2am.
“I have come to his house, knocked on his door. He showed his face, saw me and sprinted into his room.”
Portelli
“He continued to be a smart arse online so I ended up finding out his address,” the billionaire rich lister said addressing the camera and naming the suspected intruder.
The man had threatened to come and break into his penthouse again, Portelli claimed.
“I have come to his house, knocked on his door. He showed his face, saw me and sprinted into his room,” the billionaire continued.
“Mate come on,” Portelli said, banging on the door again. “If you want to show up uninvited to people’s houses I will do the same thing to you mate. F**** weak dog.”
Portelli, the son of Maltese immigrants, is well known for his extensive collection of luxury cars, a plane once owned by late media buying executive Harold Mitchell, and for buying properties featured on The Block TV show.
Adrian Portelli takes to Instagram with his detective work.Credit: Instagram
On Sunday, a couple of thrillseekers scaled up a vacant neighbouring building, climbed across the sky bridge and used a fire escape to break into his apartment and filmed the fancy cars and themselves. Oh, and boasted about it online.
Fittingly, Portelli, who owns the LMCT+ online loyalty program, took to Instagram to out one of the alleged offenders – his name, company and the video – to his 360,000 followers.
“Welcome to this week’s episode of Australia’s dumbest criminals,” Portelli, 35, said on Instagram.
He later told CBD: “Someone sent me a story that was posted on one of the alleged culprit’s social media site.
A clip uploaded by Portelli to his Instragram account that purportedly shows intruders removing protective covers off his $3 million McLaren Senna GTR inside his luxury penthouse.
“I was able to look through social media accounts and both the alleged culprits have messaged me in the past. I was able to put two and two together.”
The alleged intruders took the cover off his $3 million McLaren Senna GTR, which stopped traffic last year when it was hoisted into his 57th floor Exhibition Street penthouse with a crane.
“I think it is an ongoing concern here in Melbourne. Home burglaries are on the rise over many years,” he told CBD. “We should feel safe in our own homes. There needs to be tougher penalties.”
He labelled the alleged intruders “an absolute disgrace to every hard-working business owner in Australia” before naming the company and its owner.
Late on Monday, Portelli offered a reward for information.Credit: Adam Portelli
Police said they were investigating.
“No one was inside the property at the time, and it is not believed anything was stolen at this stage,” a police statement said.
“Officers have spoken to the owner and attended the property as they continue to investigate the circumstances of this incident and a similar one last month.”
Portelli revealed to his followers that one of the alleged intruders contacted him on social media with a grovelling apology.
“I’m sorry. I know it was the wrong thing to do. I’d be glad to work for you for free for the next month to fix my wrongdoings,” the alleged intruder said.
The billionaire responded with a laughing emoji.
DINNER DATE
We reckon there are few lawyers in Australia as well-connected as the father-son duo Mark and Jeremy Leibler of Arnold Bloch Leibler fame.
Mark, after all, is nicknamed The Powerbroker, a moniker that is hardly in jest. The firm’s 70th anniversary bash in Melbourne last year drew a veritable who’s who of the nation’s political and business elite, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese giving a speech as guest of honour.
Meanwhile, Jeremy, who runs the Zionist Federation of Australia, led a delegation to Israel this year which included former Victorian premier Dan Andrews and Liberal senator Dave Sharma, as CBD reported.
It’s no surprise then the pair scored a private dinner with Albo at The Lodge in June, documents released under freedom of information confirm, although sadly neither party would enlighten us further on the menu, or the topics of discussion.
But Leibler senior seems to take a fairly ordinary view of politicians, telling this masthead last year: “The other thing that one has to understand about politicians is that it is all about power.
“And the one consistent stream which runs through what politicians do and say is the desire to remain in power, which means winning elections, at all costs. And very often the loser in all of this is principles.”
So we can’t imagine him being too awestruck by a date at The Lodge. But we doubt he repeated such sentiments to Albo’s face. He’s far too charming for that.
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