With less than two weeks to go until polling day, it might be time for some of the Liberals’ hordes of retirees to think about their next career move.
Among many other MPs, ministers Rob Stokes, Brad Hazzard, David Elliott and Victor Dominello are all abandoning ship regardless of the election result.
Retiring minister Rob Stokes is still looking for a new job.Credit: Brook Mitchell
CBD can reveal Stokes already tried and failed to secure a soft landing as chief executive of the Committee for Sydney urban affairs think tank.
The outgoing Cities Minister was approached by a headhunter and put his hand up for the role, but was overlooked - at least partly because he was not available until after the election.
The gig ultimately went to Eamon Waterford, poached from the senior ranks of the Department of Enterprise, Investment and Trade - who also beat the organisation’s acting CEO and former Gladys Berejiklian strategist Ehssan Veiszadeh for the role.
Tough luck. But with Stokes’ well-known passion for architecture, city-building and that dreaded term “place-making” - and his Masters from Oxford - there’s no doubt he would be happily snapped up by a university somewhere, if that’s what he wants.
Meanwhile, tech industry publication InnovationAus has reported digital dab hand Dominello is in talks with Bill Shorten for a role co-ordinating state and federal service delivery.
Hazzard, 71, has reached retirement age but isn’t planning to sit on his hands - the former lawyer has always retained his practising certificate, so may return to part-time law.
As for LinkedIn enthusiast Elliott, his prolific posting has apparently endeared him to another employer. “I’m looking forward to returning to the private sector after a short break,” he told CBD. We can rest assured Elliott is not - as some had contended - about to replace Josh Landis as head of ClubsNSW.
As the Herald revealed last month, former deputy premier John Barilaro took soundings for that particular position, but was politely told he wouldn’t be a great fit.
POKIE PALACE
As the clubs lobby searches for a new CEO, Premier Dominic Perrottet reiterated his vow to take on the gambling industry over cashless gaming. In one of the more powerful moments of an otherwise uneventful campaign launch on Sunday, Perrottet read out a letter he received from a pokies addict urging him to keep up the fight.
Dominic Perrottet addresses the Liberal Party faithful at the Liverpool Catholic Club on Sunday. Credit: Dean Sewell
We hope the irony was not lost on the Premier that just metres away, on the ground floor of the sprawling Liverpool Catholic Club, punters were pouring their savings into the poker machines while he spoke.
Indeed, the Liberals chose as their backdrop one of the worst offenders in the state. In the most recent reporting period, December 2021 to May 2022, Liverpool Catholic Club in Prestons ranked ninth out of 1028 NSW clubs for punters’ net losses from its 435 electronic gaming machines.
To be fair to the Libs, it’s hard to pick a venue in western Sydney that isn’t a mecca for poker machine losses. All of the top 10 most profitable pokies clubs are in western Sydney, led by Mounties, Bankstown Sports Club and Rooty Hill RSL (now WestHQ).
SPINNING AROUND
Scott Morrison may have been a notable absence at the Libs’ campaign launch but had an on-stage proxy. Former aide Damian Damjanovski delivered a Liberal-style warm-up act before the show got under way.
Damjanovski is - you guessed it - an advertising guy, plucked from the marketing world by PM Scomo after his 2019 election victory. After those spinning skills failed to win Morrison another miracle last year, Damjanovski set up a new lobby shop with another chum fresh from the Morrison PMO, Reg Chamberlain.
General Strategic, their Surry Hills outfit, promises candid advice backed by behavioural science. “We know how to influence,” the duo declare.
Before his stint with Scomo, Chamberlain worked at the NRMA and Westpac, moving on to chief of staff for then special minister of state Alex Hawke - who, like Morrison, is still toiling away on the federal opposition backbench.
Damjanovski roused the party faithful with flair. He would have found some familiar faces in the room: Morrison’s former political strategist Yaron Finkelstein and former media adviser Ben Wicks, both hired by the Perrottet campaign. Happy reunion, boys.