By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
Turns out Liz “Lettuce” Truss, famed for her 49-day reign as Britain’s PM, isn’t the only piece of rotting debris from the Conservative Party’s disastrous final years in power to wash up on these shores.
Truss’ appearance before a few hundred attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Brisbane next month will be swiftly followed in December by another visit from Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, whose three years in No. 10 ended with a whimper in 2022 after a series of scandals.
Boris Johnson is charging up to $10,000 per table for his upcoming speaking events in Australia.Credit: AP
Johnson clearly loves the Antipodean sun and – after addressing a sellout crowd of Liberal Party hacks at last December’s John Howard lecture – he is back to talk about his Boys’ Own prime ministership to a few hundred wealthy friends at a lunch at Sydney’s Doltone House and dinner the following night at the Sofitel in Melbourne.
With celebrity agent Max Markson promoting BoJo’s tour, tickets aren’t cheap. Standard tables of 10 start at $4000, with VIP tables (you get a signed copy of Johnson’s new memoir, Unleashed) costing $6000. For $10,000 per table, you can get the full Platinum BoJo experience, which includes a signed copy of the book and a photo with the great man.
Johnson, who recently became co-chair of a uranium company whose founder is chummy with colourful former Donald Trump aide Steve Bannon, remains a man in high demand. And his time doesn’t come cheap either. Before quitting parliament, he accepted a £2.4 million ($4.7 million) speaker’s fee. No wonder Markson is charging an arm and a leg.
STRETCH MARKS
Having very recently made use of John Howard’s famous quip about political comebacks – “Lazarus with a triple bypass” – we thought the phrase was pretty much dead, buried and cremated.
But we are deploying it again for CBD favourite Srechko “Stretch” Kontelj, the former mayor and deputy mayor of the Greater Geelong Council. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he’s back.
Regular readers will recall that Kontelj spent 18 years as a councillor at Greater Geelong, which gained notoriety in 2016 when the state government sacked the entire council, led by former paparazzo Darryn Lyons. A report found the council was “riven with conflict” and “good governance had broken down” plus a “deep-seated culture of bullying”.
But the previous year, showing impeccable timing, Kontelj and wife Paula had relocated improbably to the Channel Island of Guernsey, where he served as group legal director of the vast Specsavers global empire. Life is full of left turns for some people.
Kontelj had an abortive attempt at a council comeback in 2020, running with his brother Eddy, who has twice broken the world record for the longest static cycling marathon.
He is now chancing his arm again, to the consternation of some local voters.
Kontelj, a longstanding member of the Liberal Party, told CBD he had lodged papers last week in Kardinia ward, which takes in Newtown, CBD, Geelong West and the waterfront.
“Last time I was running in the same ward as my brother, so the Kontelj vote got stretched down the middle. I got stranded,” he said.
“This time I am running on my own – that’s liberation.”
Eddy is running in neighbouring ward Hamlyn Heights, while Kontelj will take on the incumbent who replaced him when he retired, Peter Murrihy. Dislodging an incumbent in a single-member ward in a local government election? Kontelj might find that something of a stretch.
ALL SETTLED
Sighs of relief over at News Corp’s Holt Street HQ in Sydney after The Australian avoided a potentially damaging defamation battle with AMP’s former head of advice, Anthony “Jack” Regan.
In June, Regan launched proceedings against the paper over a January article he argued had defamed him by imputing that he’d misled the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and admitted to misleading the corporate regulator during the banking royal commission led by former High Court judge Kenneth Hayne.
The Australian has avoided a defamation battle with AMP’s former head of advice, Anthony “Jack” Regan.Credit: Eddie Jim
Regan claimed the article caused serious harm to his personal and professional relationships and substantial distress, embarrassment and hurt, calling for aggravated damages. Plus, he’d briefed in-demand defamation silk Sue Chrysanthou, SC, who you call when you mean business.
It seems like cooler heads since prevailed, with Federal Court judge Robert Bromwich ordering the case be discontinued on Friday, noting that “the proceedings have otherwise settled on mutually acceptable but confidential terms”.
That came a week after The Australian published an apology to Regan, noting its January article said Regan “had misled ASIC in relation to the issue of charging for advice that was not delivered”.
“This statement was an error and it should not have been published,” the apology said.
“The Australian withdraws the suggestion that Mr Regan personally misled ASIC and apologises to Mr Regan for any harm or distress caused to him and his family.”
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