By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
Underworld figure Mick Gatto shrugged off a slew of negative headlines in this publication and elsewhere about receiving payments from building industry companies, including some linked to bikies, to host a massive charity event on the weekend.
Shane Jacobson and Mick Gatto at the Equal Access for Autism Gala.
Gatto “denies all allegations” about his conduct and said 1000 people had attended his Equal Access for Autism Gala on Saturday at Essendon Fields.
“People that know me know what sort of person I am and the rest can form their own opinion ... I have done nothing wrong,” Gatto told CBD, before texting photographs of himself with members of ABBA tribute act Bjorn Again, actor Shane Jacobson (the night’s MC) and Indigenous artist Stan Dryden.
“It went fantastic,” said Gatto, who has an autistic grandson, of his third such gala to fund The Haven, a refurbishment of the former St Marys Anglican Church in Preston for the “safe space” he was constructing to help children with autism and their families.
One of the auction prizes was two business-class tickets and five nights in Cambodia with controversial neurosurgeon Charlie Teo, who has been found guilty of professional misconduct and banned from performing certain surgeries in Australia. CBD was peeved to have missed out on that prize, given Teo is such a favourite of the column. The winning bid was a tidy $15,000.
Fallen celebrity chef George Calombaris, recovering from an underpayments scandal, and 400 Gradi owner Johnny Di Francesco organised the menu, with food supplied by Vince LaManna.
Gatto forecast the night would raise about $1.8 million to $2 million.
A very ABC farewell
Popular ABC presenter Simon Marnie frothed spectacularly at the lack of an official farewell on his final day at the ABC on Friday, spraying management in a headline-generating screed.
Marnie (who had been on leave) said later it was not his wish that his comments became public. Whatevs. But hours later, Aunty did throw open the doors of its flagship Studio 22 in Ultimo, Sydney, to farewell another departee – outgoing managing director David Anderson.
David Anderson in 2020 with Gardening Australia’s Costa Georgiadis and Bluey. Credit: James Brickwood
CBD imagines everyone gathered around the pianoforte to sing along to the Majestic Fanfare and the theme from GP, before posing in the photobooth with an oversized Bluey mascot while steadfastly ignoring the way Anderson and other execs were whacked on the bum by a sharply reversing saloon swing door in the form of the Antoinette Lattouf unfair dismissal case.
But the reality was more like MC Leigh Sales roasting her former boss over his performance at one of the ABC’s parliamentary showcase spruiking events in the nation’s capital. Actor Marta Dusseldorp spoke on behalf of a grateful production sector.
Politicians were light-on due to the federal election. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland and Nationals leader David Littleproud were some of many who sent video messages, while Greens communications spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young and partner Ben Oquist from the Australia Institute turned up for the sparkling wine and canapes, although sources insist it was a modest spread.
Strongly opinionated ABC chair Kim Williams.Credit: Wolter Peeters
Staff could watch it all on ABC internal television, if they were tired of Antiques Roadshow and Hard Quiz repeats.
ABC chair Kim Williams decreed that only current staff be invited, the exception being of course for Anderson himself, who officially made way for his replacement, Hugh Marks, earlier this month.
That solved the Ita problem. Former chair Ita Buttrose wrote to ABC lawyers disputing key evidence Anderson gave in the accursed Lattouf Federal Court unfair dismissal case.
Instead, Williams spoke of Anderson’s origin story. Anderson’s first job when he joined the corporation in 1989 at the ABC’s Collinswood studios in Adelaide was as “utility attendant”. He steadied the ABC ship when appointed acting managing director by strongly opinionated chair Justin Milne, who had just sacked managing director Michelle Guthrie only to depart days later.
Buttrose, Milne’s strongly opinionated replacement, permanently appointed him and secretly reappointed him to another five-year term. But Anderson resigned months into the tenure of the current chair, the strongly opinionated Williams.
Oh, and Marnie? After this publication ran a story on his departure, Marks gave him a call and ABC audio boss Ben Latimer apologised and offered him an official farewell. The ABC must be a nice place to work after all.
Better Together bows out
Farewell then to Lucy Bradlow and Bronwen Bock, the childhood friends whose crazy-brave idea to become job-share MPs launched a thousand Australian Women’s Weekly profiles and Mamamia think pieces, to the scepticism of constitutional lawyers. And us.
Lucy Bradlow and Bronwen Bock.Credit: Simon Schluter
Their political thought bubble, which morphed into the Better Together Party, burst as it floated into the first object of substance – a federal election date.
Bradlow, a former lawyer who previously worked for Labor’s Kristina Keneally, and Bock, an investment banker, took their one week on, one week off arrangement to the Victorian electorate of Higgins, which the Australian Electoral Commission then abolished.
The duo then took the AEC to the Federal Court after it wouldn’t allow them to stand for the Senate. But alas, the Federal Court immediately halted the case and vacated the dates as soon as the election was called.
But now the duo have revealed their campaign was “tripped up” by “dual citizenship we were unaware of”. Our attempts for more detail on this proved fruitless.
The curse of Section 44, which forbids politicians holding citizenship in a country other than Australia, strikes again. We always thought the Constitution would get them one way or another.
“That doesn’t mean we will give up! We are looking at options after the election,” the pair told supporters.
Which might just salvage the pair’s merchandise line, which included $45 branded T-shirts and $85 branded hoodies, which otherwise might be heading for the remainder bins at TK Maxx.
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